Task force: It’s time to allow visitors in nursing homes
Larry LePage, 82, wants to visit his wife in her Pompano Beach nursing home, brush her teeth for her and clip her nails. Since Mary had a stroke in January, she can’t do those basic hygiene tasks for herself, and LePage is certain they are not being done. In fact, he worries she may not even be getting out of bed.
“I can’t get in there and check,” he said.
Since mid-March, with the spread of the new coronavirus, Florida’s elder care facilities have been on virtual lockdown, the result of an executive order by the governor. For LePage the separation from his wife — who can’t talk or walk — is excruciating. “I just want to see that she is cared for,” he said.
LePage may be able to visit his wife of 43 years in person before the end of the month. Florida’s Task Force on the Safe and Limited Re-Opening of Long-Term Care Facilities hammered out language on Wednesday that would lift the ban on visitors, allowing in essential caregivers like LePage who help with some aspect of a resident’s daily living. Whatever requirements the task force sets to visit his wife, he will abide.
As early as next week, the task force will sign off on a recommendation for the governor to approve that will allow general visitors and service operators like hairdressers back into nursing homes and assisted living facilities that have had no new cases of COVID-19 in the previous14 days.
Mary Mayhew, secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, said about 84% of the long-term care facilities in Florida would qualify today, or about 3,200 centers. “That means a lot will be able to consider how to open to all visitation,” she said.
The task force agreed on Wednesday to recommend longterm care facilities allow indoor or outdoor visitation — both with requirements. Those requirements would include symptom screening, completion of a questionnaire on possible exposure, proper protective equipment, and designated areas for visita
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“The bigger the menu you give long-term care centers, the greater the response and more rapidly they will move toward having visitors in,” said task force member Emmett Reed, executive director for the Florida Health Care Association, the state’s largest advocacy organization for long-term care providers. “Let’s lean on their expertise of what they are able to handle.”
Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, also a task force member, said he wants language in the recommendation that gives staff the ability to monitor visitations for social distancing and proper use of masks, but still allow some privacy.
Richard Prudum, secretary of Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs, said temperaturecontrolled.
he wants ombudsman to be able to visit with residents who don’t have family. “They are needed more than ever,” Prudum said. He said his agency has received more than 600 complaints and about 230 are under investigation.
Mayhew said she wants to get a final recommendation to the governor next week and noted that if approved, the governor could issue an emergency order to lift the ban in as quickly as 24 hours. “He is aware of the sense of urgency,” she said.
Mayhew said the task force may need to meet again about two weeks after visitations begin, “after facilities tell us about their challenges, and we learn how some overcome them and how others can be encouraged to overcome them.”
The potential for visitations is good news to Beatrice Cohen, an 81-year-old resident of Boynton Beach. She has been writing to DeSantis
daily, urging him to reopen long-term care facilities to visitors. Her husband of 59 years, Marvin, has dementia and lives in a facility that has not had any cases of COVID-19.
“I was not allowed to see him on our anniversary,” she said. ‘It doesn’t make sense that I can’t even be outside with him in the courtyard, in the fresh air.”
LePage understands how Cohen feels, worried about missing out on precious time with a spouse. For now, he talks to his wife through FaceTime, when someone on staff answers the call. It’s a one-sided conversation. He says he will abide by any restrictions. “If they want me to get a test, I will. I would do that in a heartbeat. Whatever it takes,”