This photo was taken on 2 April 2020. It was my first Zoom call with my 86-year-old mother who was in lockdown in her care home during the COVID-19 pandemic. At that point, we hadn’t seen each other for nearly a month. The care home bought a tablet specifically for their residents to be able to keep in touch with their relatives, and this was Mum’s first ever Zoom call. It’s now the 15th of June. The care home is still in lockdown. Primark opens today but I still can’t visit my mother in person and don’t know when I will. We Zoom once a week but we speak daily. Those calls can be very hard as she has become so depressed. All parties find it incredibly painful to be separated in this way and for so long.
Tagged: #Affect #Care homes #Elder care #Emotional labour #Health care #Quarantine #Welfare state
Kate Carruthers Thomas
Birmingham, UK
Dr Kate Carruthers Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow and Athena SWAN Project Manager at Birmingham City University, UK. She specialises in interdisciplinary enquiry into contemporary higher education, inequalities and gender; in spatial methods and analyses. @drkcarrutherst www.thinkthreeways.weebly.com
