2022 Improvements

Shady Oaks Family,

Please we wish to share our annual update.  With effort, luck, love, and an SBA loan, we did well.  We fought COVID, kept great staff, boosted recreation, made renovations, and earned recognition.

We have now battled COVID for 3 years.  Bristol’s 5 nursing homes have had 790+ resident cases, with 100+ deaths.  So far, we have had just 6 resident cases, all in 2022.  We are sad 2 of them died.

We tried our best to prevent these deaths.  We use KN95s and 175 air purifiers, with 4 per room.  We spent over $140,000 on COVID test kits last year for frequent staff, visitor, and resident testing.  Over 80% of our staff is current on vaccines, while staff in Bristol nursing homes average just 6.4%.

Our biggest non-COVID challenge in 2022 was wage inflation.  To hire and keep great staff, we added benefits and raised CNA starting wages $20 to $23 hourly.  It worked.  We kept great staff.

We also boosted recreation.  We already had Maria, our 40-hour recreation director, and we added Tammy at 32 hours.  We also hired a physical therapist for twice weekly group sessions, welcomed a eucharistic minister for weekly communion, and added entertainers to now average 2 events weekly.

For our home and property, we took a Small Business Administration loan to pay for renovations:

1.  We completely upgraded our kitchen to achieve restaurant level food preparation and hygiene.
2.  We trimmed our tall maples, planted 60+ arbor vitae trees, removed stumps, and re-mulched.
3. We added a new wheelchair ramp to our repainted gazebo and increased outdoor patio seating.
4. We added bright concrete parking lot curbs, line striped, and replaced our on-street sidewalks.
5. We replaced our old back-up generator and rewired our home for twice the generator capacity.
6. We began upgrading our residential electrical outlets to hospital grade outlets for fire safety.
7. We upgraded and expanded our video monitoring to improve resident, staff, and visitor safety.
8. We upgraded our downstairs call lights and adjusted volumes for safety and less excess noise.
9. We added deluxe wide pulldown shades to our upstairs dining room to help resident comfort.
10. We remodeled 3 resident rooms to improve wheelchair access, update floors, and add lighting.

Our efforts earned praise.  The CT Department of Public Health inspected us, and we earned a perfect 100% rating.  We especially thank Nicki and Ana for this outstanding achievement.  Also in 2022, we topped fifty Google reviews, and Bristol Press readers again voted us Best of Bristol.

Despite our progress, we remember heart-breaking losses. We tried hard.  We hope we did well.  For current and future residents, we promise to uphold our strong nursing in a cozy and loyal home.

Very Respectfully,

Tyson Francis Belanger

✞ We offer condolences for the passings of Robert Allison, Rudolf Calcinari, Louis Castonguay John Cazzetta, Mary Ann DiBernardi, Edgard Dube, Lillian Eckstrom, Dolores Gandarillas, Irene Maro, Jane Mattson, Pearl McIntrye, Elizabeth Murphy, Rosemary Obbaggy, Lois Palmisano, Roxann Richards, and Rose Szandarowsky.  We felt fortunate and grateful to serve them and their families.