Update from Administrator – May 11, 2021
May 11, 2021
Dear Family Member,
By now, you should have received my May 7t h email letter informing you that resident outings are now permitted.
We had problems this weekend where family members just showed up here expecting to take the resident for an outing without advance notice. I know that the pandemic has been especially hard on our residents and their families. We miss seeing and being with our family member. However, an outing must be carefully planned for. Please, it is very important for us and the resident that you provide us with at least 48 hours’ notice prior to your planned outing.
Here is why:
- Residents have doctors’ orders to receive scheduled These are medications that must be administered within a certain time frame. We want to make sure that we can administer the medications before or after your visit. If we cannot do this, we need to make arrangements with the pharmacy to send the medications out with you for the outing.
- The resident’s ability to transfer in and out of your vehicle may have changed in the last Some residents have had a decline in their ability to transfer safely in and out of a vehicle. You need to ask the unit manager if your family member can transport safely in your vehicle. Some residents and their families can be trained so that personal vehicle transport can be safe. However, many of the residents cannot safely perform this kind of transfer and must be transported in a chair van. If this is the case, and you want to arrange for a chair car transport our nurses can book the transport for you. Remember, the cost of transport is a patient/family expense, the facility is not financially responsible for this transport.
“We can take our family member out of the facility for an outing, why can’t we visit them in their room at the nursing home?”
This is a great question. According to the Department of Health state epidemiologist, family visits to a patient room have restrictions. If a patient is having a family member visit them in their room, the patients’ roommate CANNOT be in the room at the time of the visit. It is against resident rights to ask a patient to leave their room because their roommate is having a visitor(s), even if they agree to leave the room.
Also, family members/friends are not allowed to visit anywhere else in the building, only the patient’s room. Family members cannot move freely through the facility the way they did pre pandemic.
For these reasons, we strongly encourage friends and family to arrange for indoor visits in the lobby or outside visits on the patio and of course, pre-planned outings!
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Sincerely,
Steve Haase Executive Director