When the pandemic hit the area in mid-March, it took nursing homes across the region by surprise, and many scrambled to protect their residents and staff, some without a lot of success, but those who run them say that won’t happen again if there’s another surge this fall.
Some nursing homes struggled for months. In early June, Charlene Manor Extended Care reported nine deaths, Poet’s Seat Health Care Center reported 14 deaths and Buckley Healthcare Center, which did not answer calls and emails for comment for this story, reported 15. Quabbin Valley Healthcare on Daniel Shays Highway in Athol, close to the Orange town line, denied access to the public before most other skilled nursing facilities and didn’t lose any residents to the disease.
Many facility heads said at the time the pandemic hit that they found themselves looking at ways to separate those who had contracted COVID-19 from those who hadn’t, but in many cases that didn’t happen fast enough. All closed their doors to visitors as soon as it was clear just how contagious COVID-19 is and how it is spread.
Quabbin Valley Healthcare
Michael Kachadoorian, assistant administrator at Quabbin Valley Healthcare, said he and owner Scott Wheeler decided to close its skilled-nursing facility to unnecessary visitations on March 11 because they saw what COVID-19 was doing in other parts of the world and knew what it was starting to do in the states.
“We were ahead of it then, and we plan to stay ahead of it,” he said
Everyone banded together and decided it would only allow necessary visitors, like physicians, nurses and people visiting loved ones for end-of-life into the building. As time went on, he said, the facility started to allow outside, supervised, scheduled visits.
In late July, the facility had its first staff member test positive for COVID-19, but the good news was that she was not part of the nursing staff so had limited contact with residents and hadn’t been in the building since she’d left for vacation two weeks before. She tested positive when she returned and was quarantined for two weeks.
“We knew people had had limited exposure to her, but we tested people, anyway,” Kachadoorian said. “Everyone was negative.”
The facility performed contact tracing, identifying everyone who had come in contact with the employee, and it turned out no residents or patients were affected.
Quabbin Valley Healthcare has implemented a series of aggressive measures to keep everyone in the facility safe, including residents and staff being tested bi-weekly as per state requirements. All non-essential people are not allowed in the building.
Kachadoorian said he can’t stress enough that everyone remain diligent in their personal lives and take COVID-19 very seriously by wearing masks, limiting social gatherings, washing hands and remembering their actions affect significant amounts of people around them.
“We started wearing masks on March 11 and have never stopped,” he said. “We’re definitely prepared for fall. We have a robust supply of PPE, so we won’t find ourselves with a shortage. We still clean and disinfect the rooms, handrails, doors, everything people touch every day throughout the building.”
Kachadoorian said if the facility ends up with another positive case, a resident, at some point, they will be send to the facility’s “totally separate” COVID unit, which has its own entrance, while staff will quarantine or recover at home.
“We’ll continue outdoor visitation until we’re told otherwise by the Department of Public Health,” he said. “We’ll be watching for another surge in the area and do everything that is mandated to keep it out of the building.
“We’ll do just what we did last time,” he said. “Masks were the linchpin. We got ahead of it. We’re determined to hold this off.”
Poet’s Seat Health Care Center co-owner Michele Carney said the 62-bed facility on High Street has been “following the course” all summer by stocking up on personal protective equipment, flu vaccines and other supplies. She said staff and administrators are better trained than they were before COVID-19 and are ready for what lies ahead.
“We are COVID-free right now,” she said about the facility that by early June had lost those 14 residents to the disease. “If there’s a second wave, and I’m hoping there isn’t, we’ll be ready and wearing our PPE.”
Carney said she hates to say that everyone just has to wait and see, but that’s the reality. Numbers in Franklin County have been good for a few months, but that could change in the fall, especially when flu season begins.
“We’ve been allowing visitors back, for now, but they have to stay on the porch outside, and there’s a supervisor to make sure everyone is staying distant and doing what they need to do to keep residents safe,” she said. “The only visitors we’ve allowed in the building are those who have loved ones who are dying, not of COVID-19, and they want to visit them before it happens or be with them when it does. We do all of the appropriate screening in those situations. We’ve had two or three of those incidents this summer.”
She said doctors come into the building to see patients; ancillary staff such as hairdressers come in and are exposed only to their clients after being screened. But other than that, no one else is allowed.
“Everyone wears masks, including residents if they are in common areas, like hallways,” Carney said. “It’s just second-nature at this point. Workers are very careful because they don’t want to put their own families at risk when they go home.”
She said staff and residents are tested every two weeks.
“We haven’t had a positive all summer,” she said. “We just received our testing machine, which came last Friday. We’ll be training next week and then using it so we can get the results here.”
Carney said Poet’s Seat has resumed its weekly themed picnics, but residents are physically distanced from each other and staff.
“It’s tougher to serve residents and deal with everything else, but it’s worth it to keep everyone safe,” she said. “This week, for instance, we’ll have a Mexican-themed picnic. Residents and staff dress up and we serve related fare. We’ve also had one performance outside so far.”
Carney said she’s not sure which infectious-disease protocols will stick and which won’t once the pandemic is over, but believes skilled nursing will look very different when it’s over.
“Some things have changed forever, some things might go back to normal slowly,” she said.
Lisa Gaudet, vice president of business development and marketing for Berkshire Healthcare, the company that owns Charlene Manor Extended Care on Colrain Road in Greenfield, said the skilled nursing facility is much more prepared than it was earlier this year.
“We’re following all of the state’s guidelines, and we’re as ready as anyone can be,” Gaudet said. “We’re testing bi-weekly at this point and will test more often, if we have to.”
She said Charlene Manor has “ramped up” its infection control, has coached people on how to use PPE, and all staff members have been trained. The facility continues to restrict visitations, allowing family and friends to visit their loved ones outside, but not within the building.
“It’s a safe way to visit, but the good news is it’s relieving our residents’ isolation,” Gaudet said. “They have us, but they need to see their loved ones. We’re still not allowing communal and congregate dining and activities.”
Charlene Manor is continually updating and revising cohorting guidelines, as well.
“We’re deciding how we’ll deal with new cases, if that happens, and how people will be quarantined and where in the building,” she said. “We’ve learned a lot about best practices if COVID rears its ugly head again.”
Gaudet said there will be rules for everyone, from someone who tests positive to someone who returns from the hospital for some other reason and might have been exposed to new residents entering the building for the first time.
“We’ve been protecting our staff and residents since the first wave, so we’ll keep doing this until it’s gone,” she said. “Part of the hard learning is gaining the experience, and we all paid a price for having to do that the first time around. We’ll do our very best this time.”
Gaudet said she hopes all of the measures being taken will prevent another outbreak within the facility.
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-9591 or afritz@recorder.com.