On RE-OPENING, and continuing to care for each other.
Two months ago Kindred closed temporarilly. I lost my job and my ability to help people everyday. I had to lay off my wonderful employees, and I stopped seeing the hundreds of people I'm used to seeing evey month. My immediaite family and I have been fortunate to remain healthy, housed, fed. You have a story to tell, too, about your life over the last 10 weeks or so. I can only imagine the breadth of loss many of you are experiencing. One of the losses we're all exposed and succeptible to right now is the loss of hope - in the face of so much death and dysfunction and while the most violent and manipulative aspects of our political and economic system rear their ugly heads.
While I am not yet able to report a date for our re-opening, I did want to offer you the hopeful news that kindred will definitely survive this. When it is safe to re-open, our precious and powerful clinic will be here, maybe literally with bells. You might discover that our operations will be a little different to start out - fewer chairs, fewer patients per hour, masks being worn, dividers between chairs, and a few very important guidelines for patients to follow. But, we will be here, providng the acupuncture which we recognize could have helped with so much phyiscal and emotional suffering since March 13th. I cannot wait for the moment I can send you a message that says we're open and then to welcome you.
I pledge to base our re-opening strategy first and foremost on the safety of you and me and the other employees at Kindred. We are staying abreast of new information and guidelines as they evolve from the RI Health Department, and from the C.D.C. We are staying in communication with other acupuncturists and paying attention to the experiences of other similar businesses. We are also studying the epidemiology *, which frequently gets lost in the confusing and politically motivated mixed-messaging coming from the federal government about the economy and plans for the relaxing of infection controls. Please also know, that the Mills Building, and it's managing company, 545P Associates has been and will continue to take measures around the sanitation and safety of our building. Currently, one can only enter the building with a key.
Many of you have reached out to ask if we are able to do private treatments during this time. It is hard to say no to our patients who are obviously in need. However, we are committed to creating access for the many through community supported acupuncture; and, when it is safe to have a clinical interaction with one other person at a time, we can also create a safe container for more people to get affordable acupuncture. If you have the time, please read this statement from the People's Organization of Community Acupuncture. It speaks to this commitment to creating access for regular treatments in the context of our current global health crisis.
* "I Promise. I Promise. You Can't Cheat a Pandemic" By Jonathan Smith, epidemiologist at Yale and Emory
"COVID !9. Path Forward" by Harvard School of Health, Center of Communicable Disease Dynamics
