About 11,500 long-term care center workers are now sick with COVID. “It’s been like one coworker after another, after another, everyone getting sick,” one nursing assistant said.
Essential caregivers were locked out of nursing homes during COVID-19 Advocates from New York to California don t want it to happen again msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Anne Marshall-Chalmers
Special to USA TODAY
In many long-term care facilities, there are the regular visitors family members who arrive daily to talk, clip nails, ensure meals don’t sit untouched, comb hair and, in quiet moments, hold hands.
Last summer, after several months of being locked out of facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic, the regulars grew increasingly concerned that their loved ones were suffering from prolonged isolation. Through Facebook and Twitter, hundreds, then thousands of these caregivers joined efforts.
From New York to Illinois to California, advocates have rallied state and federal lawmakers to enact laws that will permit such essential caregivers to enter long-term care settings, even during a public health emergency. They’ve organized email blasts, rallies, even a travelling yard sign campaign. Their efforts prompted New York to pass a bill this spring. Arkansas, too. About a dozen other states have had essential caregiving bills at least in
Office Visit: Safe visitation critical to care
David Holden
Since the onset of the pandemic, there have been many horrible after-effects. Most would agree, one of the worst was how residents of long-term care facilities suffered unmercifully without loved ones by their side.
COVID-19 was unforgiving toward our state’s most vulnerable population. Residents of long-term care facilities found themselves locked in with nothing but a pane of glass casting a window to the world, friends and family members.
On the front end of the pandemic, “no-visitor” policies were instituted to mitigate spread and save lives, but no one could forecast the damage it would expel on the mental health of everyone involved.