FORT WORTH, Texas — Dena McDonald’s mom is so close yet so far away. Giving her mom so much as a hug is impossible right now.
Her mom’s nursing home and those all across the state are under lockdown as officials try to protect those most at risk of contracting COVID-19.
“It’s heartbreaking because she’s 10 minutes away from me,” said McDonald, a Dallas travel agent.
On Sunday, the Texas Health and Human Services began requiring nursing facilities to prevent “non-essential visitors” from access to the state’s 1,200 nursing home facilities. Nursing homes must also screen anybody coming into their facility to make sure they are not showing symptoms of the virus.
More than 90,000 people, most of whom are seniors, live in Texas nursing homes.
"The focus right now is and their top priority is to prevent COVID-19 from getting into these facilities,” said Kevin Warren, president and CEO of the Texas Health Care Association. “It’s important that everybody comply with those new restrictions and those parameters that are being put in place.”
The danger to the elderly in North Texas hit home with news that Arlington resident Pat James had COVID-19 when he died. James was tested Saturday and died early Monday at Arlington Memorial Hospital. Test results came back Tuesday.
James and his wife, Jean, live in the Texas Masonic Retirement Center. She, too, had been sick and in quarantine. All other residents of the facility are also in isolation and having their meals brought to them.
On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced in Arlington that all residents of the facility will be tested for the illness. He said a team from the Centers for Disease Control was en route to help.
McDonald’s 81-year-old mom is in a Dallas nursing home but has dementia and doesn’t understand what's going on.
“I feel really bad for the nursing home folks because this is really uncharted territory for everybody,” McDonald said.
But what happened in a Seattle-area nursing home served as a wake-up call.
A deadly outbreak claimed the lives of 23 people, including 22 residents, according to a Centers for Disease Control investigation. In total, 129 people linked to a nursing home – 81 residents, 34 staff members and 14 visitors -- contracted COVID-19.
The CDC found that “staff members working in multiple facilities” helped lead to the illness spreading to other locations. The CDC found that at least eight other nursing homes or assisted living facilities had “one or more confirmed COVID-19 cases.”
That is of definite concern to Liz Dailey, an administrator of a North Texas nursing home.
“Every time an employee enters the building, we are taking their temperature and documenting that,” she said. “We are also enforcing the second you get into the into the building, you need to wash your hands and use hand sanitizer.”
Dailey says it’s tough on her residents to be kept separated from their family members. But they’re doing everything they can to ease the situation for them.
Residents are being allowed to go outside with the activity director take short breaks on the patio so they can get some fresh air.
The facility has an iPhone and iPad. Residents are signing up to Facetime with their family.
“We’ve created a schedule and believe it or not, it’s filled up quickly,” she said.
Anita Marsh’s 89-year-old mom lives in a Wichita Falls nursing home.
“She’s doing well under the circumstances,” Marsh said. “She just doesn’t like being by herself.”
Marsh’s granddaughter took the old fashioned route. She put to paper and wrote her great-grandmother a letter.
“My heart goes out to the residents of facilities like the one my mom is that can’t be with their families right now or their families can’t get to them,” Marsh said.
Jim Tapley says his 93-year-old aunt lives in a Fort Worth nursing home.
She is bored but understands “the country is in a crisis and she understands that this is just the sacrifice to make,” he said. “This is not an easy time for anybody.”
Keta Edwards, Dallas resident, was near tears as she described not being able to visit her 83-year-old aunt in her Dallas nursing home.
Before the lockdown, she went to the nursing home daily. She brought her food, brushed her hair and washed her clothes.
“I make sure everything is done with her,” Edwards said. “I don’t know what to do.”
More on WFAA:
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- Dallas police officer tests positive for coronavirus, 3 others quarantined
- ‘Am I going to get better from this?’ Fort Worth woman, 33, says she wouldn't wish COVID-19 on anyone