Protocols followed to administer rural footcare
Advanced Foot Care nurse Chantal Widynowski took a risk in 2019 by leaving her nursing position at North East Medical Centre in Edmonton to open Heel to Toe Mobile Footcare, serving the needs of patients in the Lamont County area.
“I knew there was a need for footcare, but there weren’t very many people doing the program,” she said in a phone interview.
Widynowski, who lives in Edmonton with her husband and son, explained how she first became aware of the need for foot care in the rural areas.
“A doctor I worked with suggested to me that footcare was lost and no one was providing the service anymore especially in the rural areas,” she said. “Most of my clients lack mobility and can’t get somewhere to get their feet done. They are either on palliative care, end of life care, recovering from surgery or have other mobility issues and can’t reach their feet.”
Widynowski added that organizations who used to provide foot care were no longer doing it.
“Home care and the Veterans of Nursing used to provide it, but they stopped doing it,” she said. “The only way people could get their feet done was privately or seeing a podiatrist.”
Widynowski added that the services she provides is more about the patients’ foot health than aesthetics.
“A spa is more about pretty and I am more functional, “she said. “I will actually remove calluses, corns and ingrown toenails while educating patients on how to take care of their feet.”
Widynowski explained how the pandemic made her uncertain she would be able to continue serving patients.
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Widynowski added that after re-opening, she followed the same protocols of the hospitals.
“I come into their homes with full PPE (personal protective equipment) including a mask and goggles,” she said. “I also ask them to fill out the same checklist the hospitals use just to be safe.”
Widynowski said that although many of her clients ended up testing positive for COVID, she has never had to isolate and wasn’t nervous about administering to her patients.
“About half of my clients wound up testing positive for the virus, but I wasn’t with them around the time they had it so I never had to isolate,” she said. “With my emergency background I wasn’t scared, but I spoke to other footcare nurses who were terrified. I wanted to be safe for the clients and for my family, so I followed all the guidelines. COVID was so new at the time.”
As with many other front-line workers, Widynowski has received her vaccine, although she said the second dose took longer than expected.
“My vaccine took a long time because we didn’t have any for me to get my second dose,” she said. “I got the second dose right on the 38th day. It was cancelled three times because we had no vaccine. There were about 10 of us in that boat.”
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Jana Semeniuk
Staff Reporter
