New adult-home resident with bug worries family
A Long Island nursing home mandate to admit coronavirus patients has one family worried sick about its elderly patriarch.
Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Commack confirmed last week at least one COVID-19 patient had been admitted, prompting concern about the spread of the fast-spreading disease among its elderly residents.
Christina Peredo’s 96-year-old grandfather had been in the facility, where he was being treated for pneumonia. Doctors called the family to tell them he was being moved to accommodate a coronavirus patient who was being isolated at the long-term resident care facility.
“They had to move my grandpa’s room because they were being mandated to take in COVID patients,” said Peredo, a nurse. “My mom was kind of between a rock and a hard place. They had to call my mom and tell her. She was kind of torn with what to do.”
Despite assurances from the facility, Peredo’s family decided to take her grandfather out and place him in the care of a home health aide. The risk, she said, is that if he was exposed, he could spread it to her father, who has his own medical issues.
“My father or grandpa would not survive this,” Peredo said. “They both have lung and cardiac issues.”
So far, no one in the family has exhibited any coronavirus symptoms, she said.
A facility spokeswoman said nursing homes cannot discriminate against COVID-19 patients. To accommodate the infected patient, staffers have taken a portion of a unit and closed it with fire doors to create an isolated area.
Hospital officials said they are prepared to take in as many as 20 patients who are in stable condition, and they have 25 empty beds.
The nursing home had already put in place a no-visitor policy for patients who were not on hospice care.
But Peredo, an expectant mother whose husband is a surgeon, said the elderly in nursing homes are being put at unnecessary risk.
Peredo is with her husband, who is on a surgical fellowship in Colorado. But she said she would rather be back home in New York helping out.
“I don’t know how she hasn’t had a breakdown yet,” she said of her mother. “I have this weird feeling of guilt.”