Visitation Articles Archives - CANHR COVID-19 News & Resources

In California Nursing Homes, Omicron Is Bad, but So Is the Isolation

Friday, January 28th, 2022Friday, January 28th, 2022 CANHR STAFF

By Linda Marsa, CaliforniaHealthline, January 28 2022 (Getty Images) Dina Halperin had been cooped up alone for three weeks in her nursing home room after her two unvaccinated roommates were moved out at the onset of the omicron surge. “I’m frustrated,” she said, “and so many of the nursing staff are burned out or just plain tired.” The situation wasn’t terrifying, as it was in September 2020, when disease swept through the Victorian Post Acute facility in San Francisco and Halperin, a 63-year-old former English as a Second Language teacher, became severely ill with covid.

Families Complain as States Require Covid Testing for Nursing Home Visits

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022Monday, January 24th, 2022 CANHR STAFF

By Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News, January 19 2022 A nursing home resident waits for a visitor. (E+ / Getty Images) As covid-19 cases rise again in nursing homes, a few states have begun requiring visitors to present proof that they’re not infected before entering facilities, stoking frustration and dismay among family members. Officials in California, New York, and Rhode Island say new covid testing requirements are necessary to protect residents — an enormously vulnerable population — from exposure to the highly contagious omicron variant.

‘Mom Is Really Different’: Nursing Homes Reopen to Joy and Grief

Wednesday, March 31st, 2021Thursday, April 1st, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By Sarah Mervosh, New York Times, March 31 2021 The Biden administration this month published sweeping guidelines allowing nursing homes to hold indoor visits again in most cases.Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times Nursing homes, one of the most restricted settings in America during the pandemic, are allowing visitors again. But opening the doors has brought new complications.

Nursing home residents need to be allowed an “Essential Support Person” during times of crisis | Opinion

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021Thursday, March 25th, 2021 CANHR STAFF

Opinion by the Rev. Judy Young, Penn Live Patriot-News, March 23 2021 Retired history professor Charlotte Smith Bode was born in 1920 and like many of our “Greatest Generation,” now lives in a nursing home. I’m proud to be her daughter. While my father was earning the Croix de Guerre in North Africa, Charlotte was doing assembly-line quality control for B-52s, both to support the Allies and to pay her way through earning a Phd in American history.

The Essential Caregivers Coalition on how they are pushing to restore residents’ rights in long term care

Friday, March 12th, 2021Friday, March 12th, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By KTLA 5 Morning News, March 12 2021 The co-founder of the Essential Caregivers Coalition, Maitely Weissman, joined us live to talk about the push for a formal recognition of essential caregivers in public health policy. An essential caregiver is a close family member or close friend chosen by the resident that can provide closeup care to augment the efforts of care staff and uphold the same infection control measures.

CDC guidelines for fully vaccinated could set stage for easing of some local rules

Tuesday, March 9th, 2021Tuesday, March 9th, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By David Rosenfeld and Alicia Robinson, The Daily Breeze, March 9 2021 Resident Wendy Green, center, is served by Marisol Barrera at the dining room at Emerald Court in Anaheim, CA on Monday, March 8, 2021. Dining with Green is resident Alice Tillman. Residents were able to come to the dining room for the first time since social distancing restrictions were put into place after the CDC revised their guidelines.

Families, Advocates Pushing California To Reopen Nursing Homes

Monday, March 8th, 2021Tuesday, March 9th, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By Amita Sharma, KPBS, March 8 2021 Above: Pictured above is Zakia Azimi, Mariam Barakozoy’s mother in a hospital in 2020. COURTESY MARIAM BARAKZOY Before the pandemic, Mariam Barakzoy routinely helped feed, bathe and give breathing treatments to her bedridden 88-year-old mother Zakia Azimi at a Rancho Bernardo nursing home. But that personalized care stopped a year ago when long-term care facilities in California and nationwide barred visitors to halt the spread of COVID-19.

S.F.’s largest nursing home reopens for visits after a painful winter of separation: ‘It’s been so long’

Sunday, March 7th, 2021Monday, March 8th, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By Sarah Ravani, San Francisco Chronicle, March 7 2021 After two months of being prohibited to visit, Michael (left) and Karen Monley (right) were able to reunite with their son, David Clark (center), at Laguna Hona Hospital. For her 79th birthday, Karen Monley got the best gift imaginable: She and her husband were finally able to visit their son — a resident at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda nursing home — after a nearly three-month lockdown.

The Loneliest Room, for My Sister in a Nursing Home

Friday, February 26th, 2021Monday, March 1st, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By Susan Nusser, NY Times, February 26 2021 Lucy Jones The pandemic has stolen away the chance to surround the sister we are losing to dementia with our love, so that she does not have to face death alone. When I saw my sister Peggy in her nursing home last June, she was sitting up in bed, leaning forward slightly and staring into the corner of her room.

Vaccination rates rise in nursing homes, but when will families be able to visit?

Saturday, February 20th, 2021Monday, February 22nd, 2021 CANHR STAFF

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times, February 20 2021 Melissa Traub hasn’t hugged her 92-year-old mom since March. Like countless others locked out of a family member’s nursing home because of COVID-19, she has spent nearly a year listening helplessly on the phone as her aging mom struggles to comprehend her isolation. “I have to hear her crying when she’s having an anxiety attack, asking, ‘Why can’t I just come live with you?’” Traub said.