Instituições de residência para pessoas idosas frente ao cenário de Covid-19: desafios da integralidade do cuidado

Abstract

The main goal of Long Stay Institutions (ILPI, in Portuguese) is to provide caring services and meet the demands of their elderly residents after them stopped having a direct connection with their families, ensuring quality health and social care and, at the same time, providing support in this stage of life. Due the COVID-19 pandemic the ILPI have high risk population, meaning that the social isolation was heavily reinforced in order to protect its residents, bringing up the importance of leisure activities and psychosocial care inside the ILPI in order to preserve the elderly residents mental health in face of the pandemic scenario, taking in consideration that the care provided to elderly people have to be integral, emphasizing the physical, social and psychological dimensions and considering their individualities and singularities. With that said, this studied aimed to analyse the challenges faced by team managers who work in ILPI to attend its elderly resident’s needs, taking in consideration the availability of the existent’s services and integrity of the care in face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a qualitative exploratory research that was conducted with ILPI in a city located at São Paulo State/Brazil. The instruments utilized consisted in semi-structured interviews, who’s where conducted with team managers who work at ILPI. Through this study was possible to verify the team managers perception regardless the needs of the ELPI residents: provide a dignified life, respecting their rights and a good life quality, aspects that became a challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not possible to verify if every elderly person felt satisfied with those services. However, the ILPI studied met the daily life demands of its residents, but the social and emotional interaction with friends, families and other visitors were restricted. In relation to the emergency plans, it was possible to verify that the institutions work with those plans in mind, aiming to ensure that, in the COVID-19 scenario, its residents had minimal risks of infection. However, it was not always possible. it was also observed the need of support, orientation and improvement of the strategies applied to long term care. The pandemic exposed the complexity of the work exercised in the ILPI to provide care to elderly people, the vulnerability of the coverage of needs that extrapolate the basic needs, indicating that the team managers have challenges to be overcome in regard of psychosocial needs.