Meet Roderick, The ‘Patient Whisperer’ With A Clown Nose In His Pocket
HALIFAX – Roderick MacKinnon goes to work with a clown nose in his pocket.
MacKinnon, a security guard with JOLCAR Security Services Inc., protects residents at several long-term care facilities around Halifax.
It’s a job, he says, that requires patience, self-control, hundreds of hours of training, and—most importantly – tons of empathy.
“They call me the ‘patient whisperer’ because they come to me angry and they walk away smiling. I’m a bit of a clown.”
The fuzzy red nose in the pocket of his uniform is proof of that. But it’s also his best tool for diffusing a tense situation.
“When people come in and go, ‘well where’s all your protective equipment?’ I pull out my clown nose and say, ‘don’t worry I’m covered,’ because laughter is the best medicine,” he says.
MacKinnon prides himself on bringing positivity and laughter to his job. But these days, he admits, that’s harder than usual.
Coronavirus is most dangerous to older folks like the ones he offers security to. And with the pandemic in full swing, MacKinnon says his job has become much more urgent, complicated, and frightening.
“It’s very scary. Like, I come home to my family every night with the fear that I might be bringing this virus back to my house by chance,” he says. “But the people that I do this for, they’re really at risk. If I come home my family is in the bracket where we would live through it if we caught it. These people that I’m doing security for, they just, they won’t.”
It’s something he reminds himself every day. Long-term care homes aren’t allowing many visitors in right now, and that means he’s forced to turn family members trying to visit their loved ones away every single day.
“This past week has been very grueling. The people that I’m working with right now are very scared. Their families are told that they’re not allowed contact, they’re not allowed to bring packages, they know that their loved one may only have a couple of months left, and we may not get to those couple months.”
He says he spent all last week turning back family members bringing groceries to their loved ones, or flowers for their mom. A couple of times, when the circumstances were particularly heartbreaking, he almost cracked and bent the rules.
He remembers one man who was trying to bring a present to his sister. He wasn’t allowed in, but his sister was right around the corner. MacKinnon says if the man had even yelled her name, she would have heard him. But he wasn’t allowed to tell him that. All he could do was promise to pass on the present and the man’s love.
The whole incident was devastating, he says. And events like it happen all the time.
“When you see this 30 times a day, the tears through a window because they can’t touch, it’s just heart-wrenching. But it’s my job. And the families understand, I’m sure, later, that we’re this doing to protect their loved ones.”
Despite the anguish he sees at work every day, MacKinnon says he’s ultimately hopeful. He sees people connecting in ways they never have before: singing together through Facebook groups or reaching out to their neighbours.
He’s hopeful that once everything is over that sense of community will remain.
“It’s something we never realized was so important to us. We actually do need each other as neighbors and friends. We need to see each other, we need to hug and walk down the street and shake hands when you meet somebody,” he says.
“I can’t wait to get back to that.”
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