RALEIGH, N.C. – Deciding when you should put a loved one in a long-term care or nursing facility is a difficult decision for any family. That decision has become even more difficult as COVID-19 has turned many of these facilities into hot spots for the virus.
Reports show that nearly 1 in 6 nursing home facilities in the country have had cases of coronavirus, even with guidelines that now forbid anyone who doesn't live or work at facilities from going inside.
That includes family members who say the struggle of knowing whether the homes are safe has been difficult.
One daughter who lives in Cary, North Carolina says it's difficult to be so close yet so far away from her mom.
“When it started getting closer, the pandemic news and things were happening in the U.S. I got really panicked, with her just having lost dad,” Kimberly Riemer says.
It's been a tough year for her family. Her dad fell ill and died. Her mom, who had been his caregiver just a few short months ago, suddenly is losing her sight and needing extra care.
As COVID-19 ramped up in the United States, Riemer made the decision to pull her mom out of Windsor Point Retirement Community and care for her on her own.
“I had just lost my father, three weeks prior,” she says. “We buried him on March 1, and we really didn't have time to grieve, because I was just going there and making sure she was OK. And part of it was, maybe we can grieve together.”
But, as someone living with multiple sclerosis herself, and as her mom's needs continued to grow, she made the tough decision to move her back into Windsor Point.
“Some of our residents do struggle to understand what is going on,” Windsor Point Activities Director Julie Ann Martes says. “They miss their family very much. We do our best to reassure them, via website, they can video chat, or phone calls, that their family has not forgotten about them, they will be back as soon as they can."
Windsor Point says it is doing what it can to keep its residents happy. To date, the facility has had no cases of COVID-19. Martes credits that to fast action by management.
“We did take action before the governor told us to do so. The residents come first; their health and our safety,” she says.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services released new numbers on Tuesday:
- 2,274 COVID-19 cases in nursing and residential care facilities
- 250 COVID-19 deaths in nursing and residential care facilities
- 60 nursing homes with current outbreaks
- 23 residential care facilities with current outbreaks
“We know many of the nursing homes are doing daily screenings of employees. They are having employees wear masks all the time, but this virus is very contagious, and it's why we have been doing the hard work that we have,” says Mandy Cohen, N.C. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
State Rep., and registered nurse, Donna White agrees.
“There is so much that we don't know. There is more that we don't know about this virus than we do,” White says. “Caregiving at home is not for everyone. I've been a long-time caregiver for both of my parents, and I am very glad I was able to do that. As a registered nurse, that is something I was wanting to do and was able to do that. But no matter how much I wanted to and had the clinical skills to do that, it was still a very tough 16 years.”
Early last month, Gov. Roy Cooper expanded a state executive order mandating that anyone in a nursing home now must wear a mask and be tested upon entering the building. Last week, the legislature added to the mandates in the COVID-19 relief package, saying that any facility that failed infection inspections in the six months leading up to COVID-19 must now immediately go through retraining.
“I think facilities as a whole do the very best they can. They have very good rapport with the residents, but anytime you are in a group setting, which is why we are not in school right now, anytime something is introduced, it pretty much spreads like wildfire,” White says.
As the state prepares to enter Phase 1 of the reopen, nursing and residential care facilities will remain under strict orders through at least the first stage.