Florida nursing home residents ‘dying of failure to thrive’ as state debates visitation

by Kate Santich

In this July 13 photo, Mary Daniel and husband Steve sit together in his room at a Jacksonville memory care center. Daniel took a part-time job washing dishes at the facility to see him after a 114-day absence. (AP)

After five months of physical separation from their loved ones, Florida’s nursing home residents are dying of loneliness and isolation, the wife of an Alzheimer’s patient said Friday as she pleaded with a state task force to speed up the process of allowing at least one visitor per resident.

“There are people dying today, right now ... from failure to thrive,” said Mary Daniel, who took a job washing dishes at a Jacksonville memory-care center so she could see her 66-year-old husband there. “I am begging for urgency. ... Why am I allowed to touch my husband as a dishwasher, but I am not allowed to touch him as his wife?”

Daniel’s comments came during an initial meeting of the task force, created last week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to map out a “safe and limited reopening” of the state’s long-term care facilities to visitors. DeSantis ordered them closed in mid-March to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which has killed at least 68,000 residents and workers at facilities across the country.

In Florida, nearly 3,900 people have died of the virus in nursing homes, assisted-living centers and group homes as of Thursday night. But in recent weeks the number of infections among residents has begun to flatten, and it is now declining for workers.

Daniel’s claim that residents are dying from the despair of separation, she said, comes from anecdotal evidence. Members of her Facebook group, Caregivers for Compromise, now over 8,000 strong, describe distraught loved ones who stopped eating and seemed to lose the will to live after months of isolation — a scenario also recounted by gerontologists and long-term care ombudsmen in other states.

While some states have allowed outdoor visits or limited indoor visits, Florida’s facilities have remained largely shuttered — although state officials said confusion over the governor’s order has kept out some visitors who should have been allowed in.

“We have certainly allowed facilities to consider it as optional” to allow visitors who previously served as regular caregivers for their loved ones, said Mary Mayhew, secretary of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees the industry. “It’s either confusion or a decision” by the facility not to continue that.

Daniel also said that “compassionate” visits — for nursing home residents who are nearing death, grieving or recovering from surgery — are also being blocked.

“That [visitation] is not happening,” Daniel said. “A lot of what I’m asking are little things [including] clarification of what the rules are.”

Mayhew said she agreed with the need to act urgently and planned a second meeting for Tuesday, when the group will debate specific requirements to help facilities prepare for visitation.

Dr. Scott Rivkees, Florida’s surgeon general and a task force member, said federal guidelines spell out such requirements already, including that the facility be free of new COVID cases for 28 days. They also recommend outdoor visits when possible, the use of masks and other personal protection equipment for visitors and residents, maintaining a 6-foot buffer between visitors and loved ones, and having a designated employee “monitor” the visits to ensure compliance.

The Florida Health Care Association, which represents most of the state’s nursing home owners and operators, has its own task force that has recommended all facilities allow outdoor visits for residents who are COVID-negative.

“Preference No. 1 [is] outside areas protected from weather elements, such as porches, patios and other covered areas — or tented areas,” said Emmett Reed, the association’s executive director. “In-facility visits should be limited to the compassionate care situations ... and also facilities that have no new-onset cases for 28 days.”

Facilities also should have no staffing shortages; adequate supplies of masks, gowns and gloves; sufficient testing supplies and room in local hospitals to transfer residents if they become ill, Reed said.

But he also called for the resumption of beauty salon and barber shop services within nursing homes for COVID-negative residents, provided they follow certain safety protocols.

“This is a little outside the purview,” he admitted. “We think beauty salons and barbers help quality of life and make residents feel good about themselves.”

Other task force members did not comment on his suggestion.

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Florida nursing home residents ‘dying of failure to thrive’ as state debates visitation

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Wife takes dishwashing job at nursing home to visit husband with Alzheimer's

Wife takes dishwashing job at nursing home to visit husband with Alzheimer's

visBy Peter Aitken

A Florida woman took a dishwashing job at her husband’s nursing home after the coronavirus pandemic kept them apart for 114 days.

Mary Daniel’s husband, Steve, has been living at Rosecastle Assisted Living and Memory Care facility in Jacksonville since he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. 

Mary Daniel and her husband, Steve, reunited after 114 days apart after she took a job at the memory care facility that he lived in.  (Mary Daniel via Facebook)

Before the pandemic, Mary would visit her husband every night and help him prepare for bed. She couldn’t live with him, but it was what she could do to stay connected to him.

“I put him in a memory care center and everything was going really, really well,” Mary told CBS News. “He was thriving with all the people, and in March, obviously everything changed.”

When the coronavirus spread across the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis banned visitations to nursing homes to protect patients and prevent the spread among a vulnerable population. Mary sent “at least a hundred” messages to DeSantis asking for permission to visit her husband, and appeared on local news to tell her story.

“We tried a window visit,” Mary told First Coast News. She would visit twice a week and stand outside his window. “He just cried. You can’t explain it to him.”

Mary appealed to Rosecastle, offering to bring a therapy dog or volunteer in another way, but the facility wasn’t sure how long the pandemic might last. Then, out of the blue, the corporate office reached out to Mary and offered her a job as a dishwasher.

She finally reunited with her husband on July 3, after nearly four months of separation.

"He was teary-eyed," Mary said. "He touched my face, even with my mask on."

Mary has also created a Facebook group called Caregivers for Compromise - because isolation kills too, urging the governor to reconsider visits under certain circumstances.

"After 114 days, I got to hug my husband today. I also washed a lot of dishes," Mary Daniel wrote on Facebook, according to FOX 12. "Proof where there’s a will there’s a way!"

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Wife takes dishwashing job at nursing home to visit husband with Alzheimer's