Easter is now behind us, but for most of us, this year’s celebrations took on a more bittersweet character. After all, it was the first time that many of us didn’t get the opportunity to spend it with our extended families and our grandparents in particular.
Even though this was done for their own safety, it also meant that they would have to spend this day feeling lonelier than usual. And for those of us with family members in nursing homes, that’s been an everyday reality.
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After all, visiting relatives in these vulnerable places is out of the question right now. Or is it?
Well, it seems like it doesn’t have to be in The Netherlands, where one company has found a safe way to bring families together again.
Under normal circumstances, the Dutch firm Flexotels provides portable cabins so people have a place to relax during festivals.
For instance, here we see a “village” of them set up at the 2016 Le Mans Classic racing event.
However, since the Dutch government has banned all public events including festivals until (at the earliest) June 1 in the interest of ensuring social distancing, these cabins haven’t seen much use lately.
However, that seems to be changing now that Flexotels is starting to send their cabins to nursing homes.
As the company’s commercial director Hans van Keulen told Reuters, “Worst thing of the coronavirus is that people are dying from it, but the second worst thing is that, especially handicapped and old people are getting very lonely because they cannot receive any visitors and some…of them don’t understand why.”
The company has also modified these cabins to make visits safer than they would be inside of the care homes.
As Reuters reported , the cabins are equipped with a glass dividing wall and an intercom system so family members can once again see and talk to each other.
They just can’t touch.
Before this idea was implemented, these sisters hadn’t seen each other for five weeks.
Another cabin was also a big help for a woman named Gijsbers who could once again visit her father at Hof Van Bluyssen nursing home in Asten.
As she told Reuters, “It was a beautiful visit, certainly when you see so little of each other. And it’s a different kind of contact from over the phone – especially when someone can’t hear very well, which is the case with my father.”
Each cabin can apparently accommodate 15 visits per day in a way that’s both safe and convenient.
For their part, Flexotels representatives don’t expect that this idea will be a huge money maker for them, but believe it will allow them to keep their staff paid and weather what would otherwise be a complete bust of a festival season.
h/t: Reuters
