Dear Tabor Home Families and Friends:

Initial immunizations in the Fraser Health region will focus on healthcare staff who work in long-term care facilities. We are pleased to report that we have 45 Tabor Home staff members who have received the vaccine with more to come in the coming weeks.

We are strongly urging staff to get vaccinated with the hope and goal of having all staff, all residents and all families eventually vaccinated. This vaccine is our best defense against the virus and against any future outbreaks.

We are progressing with our outbreak management plan and are preparing for de-escalation in the next few weeks. The last couple rounds of testing have given us hope and we can finally see light at the end of this tunnel. Today we completed another round of testing for staff and residents and are praying for 100% negative test results. We've implemented some strict protocols alongside Fraser Health and we are trusting these hard decisions will be worth it when we get back to being outbreak-free.

As always, we will continue to keep you updated with all test results and protocols, but in the meantime, please continue to pray for healing, recovery, and for 100% negative test results for all staff and residents.

Yes, you read that right. We could not be more excited to announce that we received approval from Fraser Health to start window visits back up once again. Visits will be booked unit by unit and we have dedicated 30 minutes per visit. This means you can see your loved ones next week for Christmas!

We expect a large response with this opportunity so for next week we can only book one visit per family. I.e. we can't book one visit for a daughter and a second visit for the son with the same resident next week. The two siblings would need to come together if they would like to have a window visit with mom and/or dad the week of Christmas as we simply cannot accommodate multiple visits for multiple residents.

When calling or emailing to book your visit, please provide the following:

All window visits can be booked with our Visitation Supervisor, Jackie Kingma:

Please note, due to weather conditions, our grounds may be a bit muddy. We encourage you to consider rain boots and an umbrella.

Next Tuesday, December 22, we will be holding another round of Townhall meetings via ZOOM video conferencing with the Tabor Home families, unit by unit.

This townhall meeting will allow you to ask questions and express any concerns you may have. Please note that while we are always happy and available to address any questions regarding your loved one's health and well-being, we ask that you reach out privately at a different time to discuss these and/or on your weekly phone call with our dedicated team of callers where confidential discussion is able to take place about your specific loved one's health.

Click the link below to register for the December 22nd Townhall. If you do not know which unit your loved one is on, please email Bethany at BSomerville@taborvillage.org to find out and then register.

Due to the dust they collect and the extra touchpoint risks they pose to residents, we cannot have decorations in resident rooms unfortunately. Our recreation team has been hard at work decorating our therapeutic gardens and the Cherry Lane courtyard with lights and decorations for the residents to enjoy! We would love for you to help and add your own personal touches for the outdoors!

We ask that there are no food decorations (no popcorn or berry strings, please!) to avoid attracting wildlife and that all decorations are being hung so that they’ll hold up to a bit of wind and weather as much as possible. Please note that decorations that are hung in the front of the building and not in a courtyard may be susceptible to vandals so please do not bring anything valuable or precious to your family as we cannot guarantee their safety. Please also note that there are no outlets along the outside front of the building so lights will not be possible in that area.

Please note that windows must remain closed while decorating and if you would like to decorate a window that is not accessible from the front of the building, please coordinate your time with our Visitation Supervisor, Jackie, at jkingma@taborvillage.org.

We know that the lack of Christmas decor in resident rooms is hard, especially with the arrival of Christmas, but this is a Fraser Health directive and we must abide by it and do our part in order to get back to being outbreak free. That said, we kindly ask you to stop bringing in Christmas decorations for the inside of resident rooms. As mentioned above, outdoor decorations are permitted, just no indoor decor.

All further questions can be directed to Jackie Kingma, email above or call 604-859-8715 x 621.