[ad_1]
JEUMONT, France: Since the COVID-19 outbreak, French nursing home resident Colette Dupas’s contact with her daughters has been limited to talking via video call or through a window.
Now the 97-year-old has been able to feel his touch, thanks to an inflatable tunnel and two plastic covers.
A bubble room set up to visit residents in the garden of the Fondation Shadet Vercoustre retirement home in Bourbourg. (Photo: Reuters)
The “hug bubble” allows the residents of the nursing home, isolated from the outside world to protect them from the virus, to hold hands and hug their visiting relatives, because at all times they are separated by a hermetically sealed plastic film .
READ: French Prime Minister Says COVID-19 Vaccines Will Be Free For All
Dupas had a bakery in Boussois, 6 km from the nursing home, until his retirement. His family still runs the business.
When he met his daughters on Friday (December 4), Dupas entered through one end of the tunnel. He stood in front of the plastic sheet and put his arms through two plastic sleeves sewn into the film at shoulder height.
A contact bubble allows older people to hug their loved ones in France. (Photo: Reuters)
His daughters, Marie-Paule Dronsart and Marie-Joseph Marchant, approached from the other side. Each one put an arm through a sleeve. They stroked their mother’s shoulders and stroked her white hair.
LEE: COVID-19 circulates faster than in spring: French epidemiologist
Before leaving, they took turns kissing their mother on the cheek through the plastic.
“It has brought comfort,” said Stephanie Loiseau, a nursing assistant at the Jeumont nursing home, near the Belgian border.
A contact bubble allows older people to hug their loved ones in France. (Photo: Reuters)
Before the bubble was installed in the house, he added, “residents looked at their relatives through a window or a camera and really missed having real contact.”
Once Dupas and her daughters emerged from the bubble, a nursing home worker sanitized the plastic, ready for the next encounter: Fabienne Dewille meeting her mother, Raymonde Loire.
Dewille used the plastic covers to grasp his mother’s hands. “It feels good to be able to meet like this, doesn’t it?” he told his mother.
CHECK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments
Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram
