'I slept in my barn': COVID-19 through the eyes of Jason Lee of P.E.I. Seniors Homes

It's been 11 months now since Jason Lee first heard the words "COVID-19."

"It wasn't a pandemic at that point," said the CEO of P.E.I. Seniors Homes, which operates the Garden Home and Whisperwood Villa in Charlottetown and the Lady Slipper Villa in O'Leary, Prince Edward Island. 

"I remember… having a conversation with my directors of care about what our personal protective equipment inventory was at that time." 

Back then, Lee said the stock was minimal. 

"We're required to have a certain amount of inventory on hand, but that's for things like winter storms" that might disrupt supply lines, he said. 

Finding enough masks

Overnight, Lee said dozens of companies popped up, trying to sell personal protective equipment to industries like his. 

"Some of them we did business with, but oftentimes they were looking to get so much of an increase, you know — 100 times the price of what we're used to paying."

That was a scary day for everybody.​— Jason Lee

In an attempt to gather as much PPE as possible, Lee reached out to the public asking for donations. People like hairdressers and repair responded with boxes filled with masks, gowns and gloves. 

"It was a real community effort at that point in time to make sure we didn't run out," he said. "And we didn't."

Closing the doors

Lee said he had already orchestrated a contingency plan, when COVID-19 was first confirmed in the province on March 14.

"That was the day we closed the doors to visitors, thinking that that would only last for a few weeks. And of course, it's lasted for months."

During those months, the homes have had to cycle through several variations on visitation guidelines to keep residents safe.

"We adapted," he said of the changing world they live in. "Everybody adapted." 

'I slept in my barn'

For many months, P.E.I. seemed to be escaping the brunt of the pandemic, with no hospitalizations, let alone deaths.

But soon after indoor visits became permitted again at long-term care homes, a staff member at Whisperwood Villa tested positive for COVID-19 in early July.

Lee said that was a stark reminder of just how easily the illness can weasel its way into the homes of P.E.I.'s most vulnerable citizens. 

"[The staff member] had come to work before she was tested, before she was symptomatic, before she had any reason to believe she had COVID-19," said Lee. "That was a scary day for everybody."

Lee spent the next hectic 24 hours in meetings with staff and P.E.I.'s Chief Public Health Office. 

Whisperwood Villa was locked down and everyone who'd been inside was required to report for a COVID-19 test.

"At the end of that day, I went home and I slept in my barn because it was not clear exactly where the virus was or who may have contracted it," he said. "I'm just one of a whole lot of staff who would have all gone home that day concerned about whether they were putting their family at risk."

Lee said he doesn't recall everything he was thinking, lying in his barn that night., but he remembers one thing for certain: "I was thankful that it was July and not January."

A new normal

As vaccinations against coronavirus are rolled out across Canada, some people have their fingers crossed that the country will soon return to some semblance of normality.

But Lee said he is concerned that life at P.E.I. Seniors Homes may never entirely go back to how it was in pre-COVID-19. 

We have residents here who were alive back at the time of the last global pandemic in 1918.— Jason Lee,

"I think infection control and some of the precautions that we're taking now to keep people safe, we'll have a few of those stay with us into the future."

However, he said he does believe the pandemic is "finally shining a spotlight on long-term care." 

"We've been telling policymakers that there's room for improvement, a lot of room for improvement, and now I think that's being listened to," he explained.

'One day at a time'

There's little doubt it's been a challenging year for everyone in the senior care industry — including Lee.

He is quick to deflect the focus from himself and instead commend the tireless work of those around him.   

What keeps him going? Lee said the residents' families have "been remarkably understanding."

Asked to share a difficult scenario he has faced in the past few months, he instead praises his employees.

"We have staff every single day who walk into our buildings knowing that they're walking into a building where, when you look across the country, this is where the risk is."

And finally, when asked how he's navigated these "unprecedented times," he reminds Islanders that perhaps they're not as surprising as one might think. 

"We have residents here who were alive back at the time of the last global pandemic in 1918," he said, referring to the Spanish flu crisis that killed about 55,000 people in Canada, mostly between the ages of 20 and 40. 

"They have shown us every day… you take it one day at a time, and knowing that, it will get better.

"You will get past this."

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