Since suffering a traumatic brain injury five years ago, Eliot Loshak, 87, has been unable to get out of bed on his own. His eyesight is heavily damaged, and he needs help from the staff at his Manhattan nursing home just to call his only daughter, Pam.With the coronavirus now spreading through the nursing home, Pam Loshak fears for her ailing father — and for the staff members at the Mary Manning Walsh Home, who don’t have enough personal protective equipment to slow transmission of the disease, despite their hands-on care for those most vulnerable to the virus.ArchCare, which runs the facility and four other nursing homes in the New York area, has been forced to outfit staff members in rain ponchos and beautician gowns to stretch their dwindling supply of protective gear, according to Scott LaRue, president and CEO of the company, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York. Employees are given one N95 mask — meant to be single-use — to last an entire week.“I don’t feel safe,” an aide at one ArchCare facility said, declining to be named for fear of retaliation.More than 200 of ArchCare’s 1,700 nursing home residents are infected with the coronavirus, and more than 20 have died, LaRue said. At least 10 staff members are also infected, with one in the hospital on a ventilator. But Gladding, whose 105-year-old aunt is at the facility, acknowledges how difficult it has been for families to be cut off from residents as the virus has spread.“It’s nerve-wracking and frustrating and frightening, especially since you may have no communication with your loved one,” she said.Pam Loshak has limited her own phone calls to spare the staff and last spoke with her father in mid-March, when visitors were first banned. She told him to try and cover his mouth if he had to cough, but she knew even that would be tough, given his weak muscles and limited motor control. She tried to be as reassuring as possible, and let him know she was OK.“Just sit tight,” she told him.
Source : aol.com/news
Source : aol.com/news