As nursing home heals, new executive director steps in
LITTLETON » Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley recently announced that Samantha Pereira, 24, has been appointed as the new executive director of the nursing home that was hit hard by COVID-19 last year as the pandemic first began.
“Because of my young age, I feel really lucky to have been able to get my dream job right out of college,” she said.
This past spring, the facility faced scrutiny by the media and the government following a large coronavirus outbreak where more than 20 residents and at least one nurse died of COVID-19, and dozens more were infected by the virus. The facility also faced threats as it worked to get the virus under control.
However, after working at the center during the worst of the outbreak, Pereira is ready to start fresh in her role, which she assumed in October.
“This facility just has amazing staff members who have been here through everything, who’ve been through so much,” she said. “I’m happy that I’m able to help them move forward after everything that’s happened and … try to bring things as close as possible to pre- COVID.”
Despite her young age, her supervisor and Life Care’s regional vice president Kate O’Connor was impressed with Pereira’s ability to learn quickly on her own.
“She’s very independent, and
has initiative, like, I could give her a project, and she could take it from A to C to B to E without me having to give her that direction,” she said.
Pereira, who’s originally from Taunton, said she’s always had an affinity for the elderly, having spent every day after school and in the summers with her grandparents. She also worked at a local Dunkin’ for seven years during high school and college, where she said her “little elderly regulars were always, always my favorite customers.”
O’Connor attested to Pereira’s natural ability with seniors.
“She has a passion and a natural ability to be with elders and people who need help,” she said. “That empathy, you can’t teach that — you either have it or you don’t.”
After Pereira’s grandfather had a stroke, he spent time at Life Care Center in Raynham, where Pereira was exposed to the long-term care industry as a career path, and decided that’s what she wanted to pursue. She then majored in health care administration at Stonehill College in Easton with the goal of working at a facility like Nashoba Valley.
While still in college and immediately after graduating, she held a series of roles within the Life Care network as an intern, a scheduler, and eventually as a participant in Life Care Center’s administrator and training rotational program. There, she learned about the duties involved in running her own facility from locations throughout the state.
After she completed that program and passed the state-mandated exam, she began filling in for administrators as needed at the state’s various Life Care centers. “That helped me form how I wanted to be a leader and how I wanted to run my facility when the opportunity came up, when something would be open for me,” she said.
She began working at the Littleton facility last spring, toward the end of the outbreak, “trying to … help pick up the pieces,” she said.
“This building, by far, you know, was treated very unfairly by the press. … They went through so much, and they did it together. And they all just really care about the residents and have a passion for long-term care the way that I do,” Pereira said.
She said that the facility was targeted “unfairly” because it happened to be hit early with an outbreak, even though the virus eventually spread to similar facilities nationwide.
“The people here were trying so hard and doing their best, and I wish that that was the story,” she said. “It is a tough time, we do have COVID, we’re sad we’re losing our residents, but we’re doing the best we can.”
Eventually, the facility’s previous executive director, Amy Lamontagne, decided to step away from the industry for the time being. O’Connor, who called Lamontagne a “hero” for her work at the site during the pandemic, said Lamontagne faced burnout after being pulled between resident floors, interviews with local officials and the media, calls from family members of residents, and receiving hate mail.
“I just had her stop looking at some of the hate mail,” O’Connor said. “The articles that were posted in the newspapers, and there were plenty, there were comments online that were very hurtful, and she took it to heart. … It was overwhelming to her.”
O’Connor is hopeful Lamontagne will someday return to the industry.
Between tears, O’Connor said conditions have never been worse in her 30-year career in senior care. Speaking about Pereira and other new executive directors at Life Care, she said “there is nothing they can’t do going forward. They will never see anything that bad again in their lives. So going forward, I think they’re all going to be successful. And Sam already is.”
Now, Pereira is focused on healing the staff and residents from the experience, keeping the pandemic at bay and moving forward. Thanks to new information about the virus and a steady supply of COVID-19 tests, personal protective equipment and, finally, the COVID-19 vaccine, Pereira said her facility is slightly loosening restrictions, as she still keeps her guard up.
“This vaccine is a total game changer for us. It feels we’re starting a new chapter, like we have some hope,” she said.
She has allowed some socially distanced group activities and parties, including for the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day, to resume, as well as socially distanced family visits, “which (residents) have been longing for,” she said.
She even organized for the facility to receive two donated alpacas to replace a late llama, which passed away during the pandemic. The alpacas will eventually start making the rounds as therapy animals inside the facility.
“We’re still having fun,” she said. “It’s not all doom and gloom.”