DUBLIN, Ohio — Many of us have gone back to more normal routines since the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s not the case for everyone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still pushes a set of guidelines on nursing homes and other senior living communities.
What You Need To Know
- The Dublin Retirement still mandates mask-wearing here at the village for staff and residents who don’t feel well or who are working with residents who are ill since the pandemic
- But, since COVID-19, the senior living community no longer isolates residents who are ill from loved ones for an extended period
- Experts say the nursing home workforce hasn’t fully bounced back since the pandemic
Vice President of Clinical Operations at the Dublin Retirement Village Rachel Egloff has only known her job through the lens of COVID-19.
The Dublin Retirement still mandates mask-wearing here at the village for staff and residents who don’t feel well or who are working with residents who are ill. The facility also disinfects surfaces and host vaccination clinics from time to time, but Egloff said a lot has changed since the height of the pandemic.
“We can't isolate anymore,” Egloff said. “It's no longer sustainable. We can't isolate someone for 10 to 14 days anymore. It’s just no longer OK for their mental well-being.”
Egloff said residents now only quarantine for five days if symptoms are improving, but while some of the guidelines may have changed, Pete Van Runkle with the Ohio Health Care Association said the need for workers hasn’t.
“People living in skilled nursing facilities has pretty much bounced back to where it was pre-pandemic,” he said, “but the workforce really has not. We lost a couple hundred thousand employees to during that COVID public health emergency period. And so, you know, they just decided they didn't want to work in that environment any longer, despite all of the required precautions.”
It’s why he said growing the workforce is critical if something like COVID-19 ever happens again.
“Especially since, you know, not only do we have the experience of learning from we had this terrible system shock,” Van Runkle said. “There could be some other system shock that comes along that also affects the workforce."
The team at the Dublin Retirement Village will tell you they’ve adapted and learned from experience, and their plan is to be prepared the best they can.
“Being proactive is key,” Egloff said. If somebody is sick, put them in a place where they're not going to be engaged with other residents to make sure that we are containing the spread of the illness or the outbreak."
