The Pines Resident & Family Portal

Starting on Monday, August 21^st for 4-5 weeks, you may hear and see construction happening in the Pines courtyard.

What is happening and why?

Over time, too many plants and trees have grown in our courtyard, and they are blocking the water from flowing and draining correctly, which poses a risk to damaging our Home. To avoid having issues in the future, we are taking out some plants, making the garden a bit flatter, and adding special pipes so the water drains away from our building. Once the construction is complete, we will lay synthetic turf (fake grass that looks like real grass) for a natural appearance. This will alleviate further concerns for damage to the building, make the garden look nice and reduces garden maintenance costs.

How is this going to happen?

With a big crane! We need a big crane to bring in and take out equipment and material for three of the four courtyards. The biggest courtyards are two stories tall, do not have much space, and we must be careful about where we put material and equipment because of fire route restrictions in all the courtyards.

We take your safety seriously.

Extra planning and coordination are required by the Contractor, District and Pines staff during courtyard landscape removal and particularly during crane operations. The project safety plan includes the need to have areas falling under the crane’s operational arch vacated for both delivery of equipment, and removal of material. When the crane’s operational arch is above a home area, that portion of the home area will have to vacate for a short period of time. Staff will guide residents during this process.

Questions? Contact the Pines Administrator.

If you have any questions regarding courtyard construction, please call Jennifer Ridgley at 705-645-4488 Ext. 4877 or send an email to administrator.pines@muskoka.on.ca

August Family Update is below. We apologize that the meeting was canceled. Family Council will be meeting again starting in September. Please watch for more information as we get closer to the meeting.

August 2023 Family Update

Please note that the zoom meeting scheduled for tonight has been cancelled. Family Council will regroup in September. The monthly update will be posted to the portal Friday August 18, 2023. We apologize for any inconvenience.

There will be an Ice Cream Social on Thursday August 17th starting at 2pm in the Family Room for staff and residents. Join us for a cold treat!

In collaboration with Public health, the Birch Respiratory Outbreak has been declared over on August 13, 2023. Thank you for your patience as we worked through this most recent illness and helping to keep the residents safe.

The Activity Department would like to resume the monthly Celebration of Life Services and are looking for a volunteer to lead this service. If you or anyone you know may be in-interested in leading this interdenominational service for our residents, their family, staff, and friends, please reach out to Kim Gibbs or Hannah Martin in the Administration team for more information.

We are also looking for volunteers to assist throughout the home in a variety of ways. We are looking for help assisting in activity programs, with special events, one to one visiting, tea cart service, dining room set up/clean up, laundry folding…this list is endless on how a volunteer can help! Please reach out to Kim or Hannah if you would like to assist here at the Pines.

The Pines Support Committee is excited to announce they are once again holding their famous Silent Auction this August!!

After a three year pause due to the pandemic, they are so happy to resume this fun and popular fundraiser.

Here are all the details:

• Auction opens on Thursday August 24th. Items will be on display in the main floor public spaces at The Pines and bidding sheets will be in front of all the wonderful items on offer.
• The Auction will run for ten days giving residents, family, friends and staff lots of time to get their bids in.
• Auction will close on Thursday September 7th and the winning bidders will be contacted.

There will be lots of fabulous items on offer donated by our always generous donors. All funds will be used to continue to “Optimize Life” for our residents.

If you or anyone you know would like to donate to this important fundraiser, please do not hesitate to contact Kim Gibbs at 705-645-4488 x 4841 or Hannah Martin at 705-645-4488 x 4827 at The Pines. All donors will receive a charitable donation receipt from The District of Muskoka for the dollar value of their donation.

As always, they thank you for your continued interest and support!

We re-initiated our CORE program in June 2023. The CORE program is a multi-disciplinary team approach focusing on Fall Prevention, Pain Management, Continence Management and Skin & Wound Management. Our CORE committee meets monthly to discuss a variety of topics including monthly weight reviews, restorative care updates, physiotherapy updates, monthly ER visits and high-risk residents who were flagged on the previous month’s RAI-MDS quality indicator report. We focus on four RAI-MDS quality indicator areas: falls, pain, continence, and skin and wound. As a group, we review the high-risk residents, their current care plan interventions and discuss other interventions to put in place to assist in improvement in those key areas.



We have started with our falls program and pain program with plans to implement the other two programs before year’s end. Please see the new Fall Prevention brochure for residents and families.

The respiratory Outbreak continues in the Birch Meadows home area. There is currently one (1) resident in isolation at this time. Symptoms include cough, sore throat, and congestion/sneezing. The pathogen has been identified as Rhinovirus.

The following infection control measures are in place at this time:

• No General Visitors; only 2 Essential Caregivers at a time.
• Masking and wearing of eye protection on Birch at ALL TIMES.
• Twice daily respiratory symptom screening on Birch
• Immediate isolation of any residents with new symptom onset (as listed above)
• Twice daily high-touch surface cleaning on Birch

Please reach out to Melissa Muir-Clark (IPAC Lead) if you have any questions at ext. 4752

The respiratory Outbreak continues in the Birch Meadows home area. There is currently one (1) resident in isolation at this time. Symptoms include cough, sore throat, and congestion/sneezing. The pathogen has been identified as Rhinovirus.

The following infection control measures are in place at this time:

• No General Visitors; only 2 Essential Caregivers at a time.
• Masking and wearing of eye protection on Birch at ALL TIMES.
• Twice daily respiratory symptom screening on Birch
• Immediate isolation of any residents with new symptom onset (as listed above)
• Twice daily high-touch surface cleaning on Birch

Please reach out to Melissa Muir-Clark (IPAC Lead) if you have any questions