SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

No pun intended.

After 2 1/2 years of ALL COVID ALL THE TIME, 2 1/2 years of constantly evolving regulations and recommendations from multiple government bodies, we finally received an update that relaxed the requirements rather than making us jump through more hoops. We’ve watched all other health care settings walk back the restrictions imposed during the pandemic emergency while CMS, the CDC, OSHA and our state health departments have continued to require the strictest infection control measures in our setting.

Since March, 2020, we’ve had to screen before clocking in. Temperature check, hand hygiene, mask on, answer a list of questions, and sign our names. Visitors have had a similar screening requirement. Our residents have not seen a staff member’s entire face during this time. New admissions were subject to up to 14 days of isolation, based on vaccination status. I don’t even want to imagine the amount of money that has been spent on PPE. Our reimbursement didn’t increase but we were spending significantly more to care for each patient.

Worst of all has been the denigration of our industry and the way we’ve responded to the pandemic. Nobody was prepared for this. There were no precedents for a pandemic response. No protocols in place. In the early weeks of the pandemic there were days when the “guidance” (AKA regulations and requirements) changed 3 or 4 times in one day. Were there bad nursing homes out there? Did some of them drop the ball? Sure. But the vast majority of skilled nursing and assisted living facilities are staffed by people who provide the best care possible. We’ve hung in through unimaginable trials and we are still there. And it really sucks to hear people with no experience or direct knowledge accuse our industry of patient neglect or fraud/overbilling.

Anyway, the CDC dropped a huge update last Friday. Our sign-in binders are gone. The thermometers at the front door have been put away. Patients who do not have confirmed COVID aren’t required to be isolated. And there is hope that some time in the future we won’t have to wear masks in patient care areas.

It really feels good.

I am relieved for you. I used to do volunteer visits at our local assisted living center and when I had some respiratory virus back in 2017, my PCP advised me that I was putting myself in a high-risk environment for acquiring such communicable disease, and to protect myself I should always (a) wash my hands immediately after leaving the building and (b) never touch my face with my hands while I was there. He never mentioned that I might try wearing a mask for anyone's protection. If I were to have had symptoms on or before my scheduled visitation, common sense dictated that I should cancel for the residents' sake! Many years, during flu season, they would close to visitors, which always made sense to me.

Sorry for everything you have had to endure, I cannot begin to imagine, especially since I recall it affected you so hard, and your family.

I hope we all have learned something from this last few years, and don't abandon all precautions about disease spread, nor fall into compulsive fear.

i hope it continues— you and other folks in the caretaking fields have had it so bad the last few years. Fingers crossed for you all!

Oh HF, what a RELIEF. I really hope it stays that way for you all.

Congrats
Hopefully these changes will bring some people back to work in your facility.

The only places here that still make people mask are the hospitals, and Dr's office on the hospital campuses, the ones that aren't on a campus of an acute care facility don't, and even the outpatient labs no longer do, I was surprised by that one on Friday when I went for a lab.