Pastoral Care to Those Who Can Only Receive Communion in Tongue

With the outbreak of the influenza A H1N1 virus in the Philippine
population, the local Church authorities made a ruling to prevent
the further spread of the virus also within the celebration of
the Mass: they told the faithful to receive the communion host
not in the tongue, but only in the hand.

As a local communion minister, I realized that certain groups of
people need extra pastoral care in relation to this ruling. These
groups of people who can only receive communion in the tongue
are:

• the elderly and disabled who are brought in wheelchair to
  the celebration of the Mass
• the elderly who are already feeble and often accompanied in
  the communion line by their middle-aged son or daughter
• the young parents who cannot leave their toddler in the
  Church pew, but need to carry the child in both their arms as
  they line up for communion (and also parents who have both their
  hands full of two children who are not of communion-age)
• the sick and elderly in their homes who have always been
  used to receive the communion host in the tongue (especially the
  sick who have suffered stroke and cannot move their arms)

The best preventive care I personally think which can be done in
general is to wash the hands well with water and soap in the
sacristy of the Church before the Mass, and to wash it with water
again during the Mass before communion time. This is my personal
opinion of what can be done in response to special persons, until
the local Church authorities would deem it necessary to create
specific guidelines on how to take extra pastoral care of persons
who can only receive the communion in the tongue.