![]() Nationwide, COVID infections in nursing homes have been steadily declining since vaccinations for staff and residents started in December. State data now show that 90% of nursing home residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19 while 63% of staff have received their shots. The Department of Health has not yet returned a request for comment.ĬOVID-19 vaccines offer some light at the end of the tunnel. Nursing homes were devastated by the virus, with more than 15,000 deaths of long-term care facility residents since the start of the pandemic, about 30% of all deaths in New York State. State health officials contend the policy, which is similar to guidance from the federal government, was in place to protect elderly residents who are most likely to suffer severe illness and death from COVID-19. New York State suspended nursing home visits at the height of the first wave and later reopened facilities for visits last July to visits if there had been no COVID-19 cases for 28 days.įacing pressure from families, that window was reduced to 14 days last September. The challenge is – it’s still ending up in the nursing homes.” “If you have a case within 14 days you cannot go in. “Our hands are in some ways tied,” he said citing federal guidance. Howard Zucker, the State’s Health Commissioner, addressed the new policy during a state budget hearing Thursday. His grandmother’s nursing home has 800 beds and two dedicated floors for COVID-19 patients. “We’re back to square one," Grullón said. Of the 610 nursing homes in the state, about a third of them are eligible for visitation, according to the Health Department. "Thanks to the dedication of New Yorkers, we're now at a point where we can begin to expand nursing home visitations.”īut, according to the fine print, families must abide by the same rule that had been in place, namely that any time a new COVID-19 case is detected at a nursing home, in-person visits are pushed back 14 days, meaning many families aren’t likely to see their loved ones any time soon. "One of the most devastating aspects of this virus has been how it separated families from their loved ones, making an already difficult situation even harder to bear," Cuomo said. He certainly made it sound that way in a recent statement. ![]() Many families expected the ban on most nursing home visitations, in place since last March, to end along with a slate of other changes proposed last week by Governor Andrew Cuomo. His grandmother’s dementia has worsened over the last year he said she barely looked up when they had a recent “window visit.” We’re still not gonna get to see her,” said Grullón who works with the group Voices for Seniors. Grullón’s mother, Catalina Perez, who has dementia and survived COVID-19, has had one in-person visit from a family member since last spring, according to Perez’s grandson Henry Grullón. But she can’t bring her homemade Sancocho, a hearty Dominican stew, to cheer her up. Ana Grullón can see the nursing home where her 98-year-old mother lives from the window of her Kingsbridge Heights apartment in the Bronx.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |