At last, they can hold dear ones
Vaccine brings easing of rules at nursing homes
For six months leading up to Angelita Hinojosa’s 100th birthday, she rounded up her age: She always told people she was 100, not 99.
But when the big day came in June 2020, her only son wasn’t able to celebrate with her inside the Sarah Roberts French Home, a nursing home in the historic Woodlawn Lake neighborhood where’s she’s lived for nearly 13 years.
Nursing homes and assistedliving
facilities had locked their doors and stopped residents from meeting with loved ones to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The elderly residents were among the first victims of the pandemic, which eventually killed almost 8,900 people in long-term care facilities in Texas, including 514 in San Antonio. They account for about 20 percent of all Texas COVID-19 deaths.
Vaccinations have finally brought relief.
Hinojosa and her 82-year-old son, Edward, have been vaccinated, and now they’re able to visit whenever they want in the same room. There’s no limit to how often they hug or hold hands. In May, they can celebrate Mother’s Day — and then Hinojosa’s 101st birthday in June.
Whenever she’s asked, she already tells people she’s 101.
“I never had problems with my son, that’s why I’m still living,” Hinojosa. “Because problems eat you up.”
For the first time since the coronavirus tore across the country, life is slowly returning to normal in long-term care facilities. Late last month, the state of Texas significantly loosened restrictions, making it much easier to visit residents in nursing homes where communities have kept the pandemic spread in control.
For some families, it’s brought the end of window visits and ushered in an era where multiple generations of the same family — parents, children and grandchildren — can once again spend time together in the same room. There is hope and joy, after a year of profound loss and overwhelming isolation.
“I feel great because I can see her and touch her,” Edward Hinojosa said. “She looks forward to it, and sometimes I ask her, ‘Do you want to talk to any of your nieces and nephews?’ And she says, ‘As long as you’re here, that’s all I want.’ ”
For much of the last year, Hinojosa greeted his mother through the window of the nursing home three times per week. Even if they’re in the same room, she often has a hard time hearing, and the mother and son struggled to communicate. Edward had to call one of the facility’s staff members, who would relay his messages to his mother behind the glass.
“It was a hardship on everybody,” Hinojosa said. “But it’s best for everyone all the way around.”
Over the course of the pandemic, the 60-bed facility reported 14 cases of COVID-19 and two virusrelated deaths among residents, according to state data. Those are among some of the lowest counts at nursing facilities in San Antonio: Across the city, nursing homes reported nearly 3,500 cases among residents and more than 1,700 cases in employees.
At some facilities, dozens of residents were infected.
Because of the pandemic’s disproportionate toll on older adults and people with disabilities living in close proximity, residents and employees of long-term care facilities were given first priority for COVID-19 vaccines, along with health care workers.
The shots quickly showed results: Across the country, COVID-19 cases in nursing homes plummeted 96 percent and deaths dropped by 91 percent from the end of December to early March, according to a recent study by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living.
Because of the improving conditions, the federal government has urged states to allow residents to visit with their loved ones, regardless of whether they’d been vaccinated or not.
“It’s been very emotional,” said Alexa Schoeman with the Texas Office of the Long-term Care Ombudsman, which works to protect some of the most vulnerable Texans. “It’s so important to residents’ health and well-being … and families are just so grateful for the opportunity to finally be able to see loved ones.”
Texas followed federal guidance and eased restrictions in late March. All nursing homes in the state are required to allow residents to meet with visitors outdoors, and indoor visits must be allowed in most circumstances. Even residents who have tested positive with COVID-19 are allowed to see their loved ones.
All visits must be scheduled — a means for some facilities to continue limitations, Schoeman said.
“Certainly the goal is to get back to pre-pandemic, where residents have the right to visit with whomever they wish whenever they wish, just like the rest of us,” Schoeman said. “We should be able to have friends and family over as we like.”
Isolation and loneliness can have devastating effects on older adults. Recent research has found that social isolation increases risk of premature death, the likelihood
of dementia, stroke, heart disease, depression, anxiety and suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We hear stories of a lot of residents who passed away during the pandemic, whether or not from COVID-19 without the family with them,” Schoeman said.
Before the pandemic struck and Sarah Roberts French Home shut off residents from outside visitors, Helen Rodriguez, 71, spent hours each week there tending to her 91-year-old mother, Mary Moreno. The two are best friends, and Rodriguez would brush her mother’s hair, do her makeup, check her teeth and paint her nails.
The first two times she had to greet her mother through a window, Rodriguez sobbed. She knew that the facility’s precautions were only meant to protect her mother, but she still couldn’t help but feel
sad and anxious that she couldn’t see her mother in person. Her mother has dementia, and talking by phone and waving through glass wasn’t the same.
Now for the first time in more than a year, Rodriguez can visit her mother not only in person — but also with her own daughter.
Lori Rodriguez-padilla, 46, used to help run bingo for her grandmother and other nursing home residents. She often met her grandmother for lunch, and sometimes colored with her.
But she hasn’t been able to visit with her at all since the pandemic began — until last week, when for the first time she was finally able to see both her mother and grandmother in the same room.
“The first thing I did,” Rodriguez-padilla said, “was just hold her and hug her.”