Life is changing. People are adjusting to much more time indoors. Those most at risk, the elderly, have the most to be concerned about. In regards to our small community, New Richland Care Center is doing well to cater to people’s needs, and the mood has generally been good among residents, according to Chuck Ness, the Care Center administrator.
“The Care Center is virus free and we look to keep it that way, said Ness. The following are responses to questions sent to Ness.
Generally, what has the mood been among the residents of the Care Center?
The mood has been pretty good generally, especially considering the amount of time they are spending in their rooms. We are doing as much as we can in keeping people active and engaged with more one-on-one nurse aides and activity aides as often as possible. Therapy is still occurring as scheduled. Staff have been helping quite a few do Facebook Video Messaging or Chat with the use of our iPad. We also assist with coordinating visits with staff outside and residents remaining inside and assist with the phone.
What are you doing to help ease worry and fear over the latest news regarding COVID 19?
I personally present information in the building to any interested parties Fridays at 2 p.m. We also give staff information as things change on our network and via memos in the break room. Family members have received letters updating them to important changes and get information in the monthly newsletter that is mailed out. Family members have also contacted staff with questions they may have. I’m thinking of sending more frequent updates to resident families while the COVID issue is affecting us.
What precautions has the care center had to implement?
Many different changes. Bear in mind that when state or feds make changes for us, we have no choice but to implement them. Biggest change is not allowing visitors in the building. This disrupted family and friend visits, activities, visiting entertainment, etc. We have a lot of visitors, so this was a massive change.
Another big change was when we were first allowed to have family visit when residents or family were having emotional distress. That lasted about four days before the state and feds told us that was no longer allowed. I think one or two families were able to do this before that was shut down.
Basically now the only people entering the building are staff and medical providers. We follow state and federal screening and sanitation guidelines before they are allowed to enter. Anyone showing any symptoms are refused entry. Staff are screened both when they come to work and when they leave each shift.
We monitor residents per state and federal guidelines several times throughout the day.
What is the care center doing to help alleviate stress and provide comfort and entertainment to your residents during the current situation?
We perform a lot of one-on-one activities throughout the day for residents who desire it. We have submitted a state grant application for the initial COVID $50 million funding from the state for 3 FTEs in activities, 3 FTE in CNAs and additional iPads for help in this area. We are doing whatever we can to keep the residents' spirits up. It is going well so far, but we know that will be a challenge the longer this continues.
Now that the weather is improving we are able to take residents outside, one at a time, to be outside either around our building or in our courtyard.
What do you think about this current situation?
I think it’s horribly unfortunate, but it’s just something we need to deal with. It’s one of those freak events from nature that we just have to react to.
Our biggest frustration is lack of PPE (Personal protective equipment) and the inability to get more. Typically, nursing homes don’t use a lot of PPE. We use a lot of gloves every day, but other PPE use is in response to communicable illness and other PPE we rarely use. So I assume virtually all nursing homes are ordering all the PPE at the same time. This is compounded with hospitals and EMS getting preferential treatment from the vendors at direction of MDH, CMS and CDC. Interestingly we aren’t able to get our preferred N95 masks as hospitals need them the most.
So far staffing has been going well and kudos to them. It’s kind of unnerving to be one of the few vehicles on the road coming to work, but being at work, and having a steady paycheck, is better than most have it. People need to recognize that while some are bored if they are working from home, our staff have to come to our building to work. There are maybe three people on our staff who don’t have to be in the office to do their work. Everyone else is putting themselves in a bit of risk to come to work now and that risk will go up if we ever get COVID in the building. We are doing everything we can to get as much PPE as we need to keep our people safe. We did get about 2,000 masks from the federal cache last week and that helped a lot, but so much more is needed. Friends of NRCC have donated hundreds of hand-sewn masks for non-direct care staff to use and its very appreciated.
Anything else?
Our ultimate goal is to keep the nursing home in a secure and virus free bubble. We are doing everything we can to keep COVID out of the building as this is the best path for the residents and ourselves. That will keep our residents the healthiest and frankly keep the potential staffing issues at bay as well.