SYDNEY, N.S. — Revive Hair Studio and Spa owner Mike MacDonald is happy to be back to work after having to close his doors to services in March.
But he’s a little bothered by the number of times the guidelines for reopening have been changed after being closed due to COVID-19 health protection measures.
The latest changes came Thursday, the day before their reopening. These include allowing double booking of clients and facial services that don’t require the removal of the client’s face mask. These services were allowed in the first guidelines released on May 21, but not in the amendments made on May 27 based on direction by chief medical officer Dr. Robert Strang.
“(For the estheticians) with the last minute changes (Thursday), we can’t book any of those services for two to three weeks because we cancelled them all and booked in all of these other services,” MacDonald said.
“Another one of the changes is now we can double book, if we can still follow social distancing. And again, we just spent seven days calling every client and scheduling them for the next eight weeks, and they’ve changed it.”
Cosmetology association executive director Dana Skarkey said they have been petitioning the chief medical officer to change some amendments they made to their first set of guidelines.
The first was a capacity gap at 10 people maximum per salon (staff and client) which they were able to have changed to better suit each individual space. Sharkey said they have been waiting to meet with Strang to discuss allowing double booking and facial services since then.
“We met with him on June 2 and I received the email about being allowed double booking and facial service that don’t require the mask to be taken off at 11:35 p.m. on June 3,” she said.
“The first Facebook post for our members was at 7:35 a.m. (Thursday). Then we worked to get it up on the website, on social media, we did two live streams for our members and the email did go out at 3:57 p.m.”
She said there was a lot of “back and forth” between the different agencies they were dealing with to get the guidelines approved, including public health, occupational health and safety and the chief medical.
Sharkey also said it was difficult to get a meeting with Strang to review guidelines because of how many different associations he’s had to meet since announcing the economy was reopening starting June 5.
However, MacDonald believes if the proposed guidelines were presented to the government agencies in a way that explained their industry properly, there might not have been so many changes.
“I put it on our association. I respect the fact that the province has done amazing making sure everyone was protected as far as having funds and having income available. They did everything very well and obviously flattened our curve,” he said.
“I do feel the communication from the association (to Strang’s office) about what we needed, that was their responsibility. It should have been very clear and it should have talked about what we required… And that should have been debated right from the get-go and not keep going back to the table over and over again.”
MASSAGE THERAPIST
Other associations in Nova Scotia also sent approved COVID-19 reopening guidelines only a day or two before the June 5 date.
Massage therapist Amber Tapley said the Massage Therapist Association of Nova Scotia was one who did but noted there was little change to their proposed guidelines.
However, due to the late approval of guidelines and no childcare services until June 15, the mother of two has started to return to work starting in July.
“If I had bought the masks before the guidelines were approved I could, but it didn’t make sense. It’s hard to buy things (like face masks, face shields, gowns) when you don’t know what you’re going to need,” she said. “It’s hard to make plans when you don’t know what something is going to look like.”
Tapley, who is also a birth doula and a folk herbalist, works out of two spaces: the Prince Street Market in Sydney and Oceanview Wellness Centre in St. Peter’s. Her plan is to start back part-time, prioritizing her pregnancy and post-natal clients, easing into working life again and trying to find a better balance than she had pre-pandemic.
“Partly I want to give myself time to get used to the new regulations,” she said. “The other is me not wanting to be away from my family all the time like I was before.”
