Salina Dookheran
Palliative Care Social Worker, Riverview Health Centre
For the past three years, Salina been working as the Palliative Care Social Worker at Riverview Health Centre. She works with an interdisciplinary palliative care team to enhance the quality of life of patients who are facing end of life.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the visitor restrictions at facilities has had heartbreaking implications for many palliative care patients and their families. Salina has been working hard to keep patients and families connected during the pandemic by facilitating many window visits at the solarium and virtual visits with the iPad. The emotional well-being and needs of patients and families during these very difficult times cannot be overstated and Salina feels fortunate to work alongside such a compassionate team.
The impact she has in patient-family care, her personalized delivery of support, her ability to remember people and their circumstances months after their hospitalization or death of a family member when they reconnect to say thank you or reach out to say, “I am ready for help now,” and the degree of advocacy is second to none. In the words of one of her colleagues, "Salina has been a rock star in helping keep families connected to Palliative Care patients. She has been working through lunches, staying late to help coordinate iPad visits, solarium visits and phone visits all within her regular scope of providing dignity therapy, admission assessments, discharge planning and bereavement support. Every day she comes to work with a smile on her face and a positive attitude. She has gone above and beyond to support our Palliative patients and their families in these very challenging times."
