Update from Administrator – May 24, 2020
As always, our team and I hope this finds you safe and healthy. During this Memorial Day Weekend, I would like to first take this opportunity to show respect and honor to all those Veterans who have lost their life serving our country. My sincerest thoughts and prayers go out to them and their families. Another “thank you” for all the staff’s hard work, dedication, and compassion for all of our residents here. We remain incredibly grateful for our entire dedicated team and ask you to join me in ensuring that they are included as “Health Care Heroes” battling COVID-19. They are doing everything they possibly can to care for those suffering and support them as they battle this disease.
We continue to work together to assist residents with opportunities for FaceTime calls, Skype sessions and window visits with loved ones. Please continue to reach out to our recreation team to schedule “visits”. The state was kind enough to supply us with additional iPADs to conduct FaceTime visits.
Over the last week we have continued to appropriately cohort our residents according to the CDC guidance.
As Litchfield Woods took the initiative to test all residents for COVID-19, we will not be participating in Point Prevalence testing with the Department of Public Health. DPH is aware and satisfied with testing to date, as well as our on-going plan to cohort our residents. Facilities that have not tested all residents to date are being asked to do so. The current numbers for our center are 84 COVID-19 recovered residents and 4 COVID-19 positive residents.
As you know from our communications, managing this virus has been devastating to our staff but we are doing all we can to treat our residents. As stated, we currently have 4 positive residents in house. We have had one additional visit from the National Guard and Department of Public Health since my last letter. We have been found to be in compliance during all visits for PPE, staffing and infection control and prevention issues. We continue to follow all CDC and state guidelines and receive regular updates on new guidelines that are offered.
Good news… As of today, we have seen 77 of our residents recovered and are now symptom-free of COVID-19. An additional 7 residents who were positive for COVID-19 have also been discharged home. Please be reassured we continue to monitor all are residents on a consistent basis. We are very excited for these residents, their families, and our staff. We anticipate this number to continue to rise and held our first recognition celebration last week. You can check our Facebook page to see pictures of this celebration and more celebration is coming soon. It is truly uplifting for our residents and staff.
Window Visits and Outside Visits
Now that the weather is looking good – we are scheduling window visits with your loved ones. Please remember that the window visits must be pre-scheduled to ensure safe and healthy visits for you, the residents, and our staff. We are also very excited to be working on outside visits with your loved one; provided masks are worn by everyone involved and social distancing takes place. Staff will assist with these visits as well.
Staff Testing
We appreciate your concern for our staff and we have fielded many questions on social media and through phone calls about testing of our staff. We know there have been many references to testing being available to all staff and that the governor “wants” and “encourages” the testing of all nursing home staff. We have heard that spots are reserved for staff. We strongly support this idea – but as I have mentioned before, the state is still not there yet. We would love to see mass testing of our staff, but we have not been provided with the state’s plan to address this. With that said, many of our staff have already been tested as well.
We are working with the state and our state association for staff testing. This is not about our finances. This is about access, planning and assuring a process is in place.
The state of Connecticut is reserving only 50 spots per day for nursing home, assisting living, and residential care workers. These spots will be available each day, six days a week (Monday through Saturday), for these workers. Obviously, the demand for testing is expected to exceed the capacity. Our center alone has almost 270 full and part-time employees. Below is the information we have received from the state:
“Effort will be made to prioritize requests based on the criteria listed below, recognizing that not every potential test recipient will be able to immediately take advantage of this opportunity. (Healthcare workers and their family members can be directed to the CVS website for CVS testing independent of these reserved spots, too).
Priority will be given to persons with one or more of these symptoms:
- Fever of 100 degrees or higher;
- New cough within last 14 days;
- Shortness of breath
Second priority will be given to person with one or more of the following risk factors:
- Exposure to or contact with someone with COVID-19 in the last 14 days;
- Immunosuppressed;
Healthcare workers may also register through the online system for the general public for assignment to the non-reserved slots. Anyone who does not have an appointment will not be tested. Tests can be scheduled for the same day or up to two days in advance. To register, visit http://www.cvs.com/minuteclinic/covid-19-testing.
I encourage any residents and family members to contact me with any questions you have about the care we are offering. Our commitment is to be as transparent as possible and work to address any issues that arise. This is an incredibly challenging time and we will continue to do all we can to get through this, together. A reminder that resident-specific questions cannot be answered on this email or on our Facebook page so please reach out to us directly if needed.
Thank you and please stay safe and healthy!
Denise Quarles, Administrator