The early claims that COVID-19 was dangerous for primarily the elderly and people with preexisting conditions were reassuring for some. For mother daughter pairing, Margaret and Meredith Quinn, those claims were less than calming.
Margaret Quinn is the executive director of Sunrise Senior Living located in Paramus, New Jersey. As the head of multiple departments in her building, she had a hectic schedule even before the outbreak.
“It's really a very mixed bag my day,” Quinn said. “We always start our day with the daily stand up and talk about any resident issues or building issues. My community is divided up into departments, I have dining, I have maintenance, I have memory care, I have assisted living, I have nursing, I have activities. So, you know, my job is crazy on a normal day.”
As many healthcare providers have experienced over the past months, Quinn now works in an entirely new reality, one amplified by the aggressiveness of the disease on the elderly.
According to a report done by the official site of New Jersey, as well as the website’s "COVID-19 Dashboard", there are currently over 26,000 cases in long term care facilities alone. The Centers for Disease Control defines long term care facilities as nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities.
The charts below show facilities with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, as well as facilities with the highest number of confirmed deaths. The total deaths are counted as reported by facilities to the New Jersey Department of Health Communicable Disease Service. Not all deaths have been laboratory confirmed.
The impact can be felt in Quinn’s facility not only in the physical health, but in the morale of her current residents. Quinn said that the residents are no longer allowed outside their rooms or in any of the other residents’ rooms. She said that workers and aids try to fill in the time to make sure the residents are not by themselves for too long, but it is still hard on all of them.
“It's bad because they're all declining now, physically, cognitively. They're getting depressed,” Quinn said. “With this generation, the greatest generation, they've lived through so much, they were young during the Depression, they lived through World War II, they experienced a lot of hardship, you know, they worked very hard their whole lives and to see this hit that generation so hard, that's been really hard.”
Quinn’s daughter, Meredith Quinn, works at a Care One facility in Livingston, New Jersey. Originally hired in November as the director of sales and marketing, Quinn now focuses on taking care of the residents along with the rest of her facility.
“I now spend a lot of time ensuring that residents are eating and feeding residents and you know, doing more hands on care,” Quinn said. “It's a lot of facetiming, a lot of communication with families.”
Quinn said that the hardest part of her job has become cleaning out residents’ rooms after they die. She said that because of the virus, some families do not want to come in to take their loved ones’ belongings in fear of catching the disease.
Both Margaret and Meredith’s facilities are home to residents with cognitive disabilities. Meredith said that some patients don’t understand what’s going on.
“They're already dealing with depression, you know, at that age and they’re now confined to their rooms, and although we do activities as much as we can, they're not seeing their families,” Quinn said. “They don't remember what's going on. So you're constantly trying to explain to them what's going on or why they're not visiting or all of that.”
Both say that they try to find ways to keep residents connected with their families, even if they can’t actually be in the same room. Margaret said that her facility was given three iPads to FaceTime the residents’ families. She said for residents living on the first floor, they allow the families to come and see them through the windows. She also has tried to increase transparency with the families as well to make sure everyone stays up to date.
“I created an email distribution list, which I've never had before,” Quinn said. “I am letting them know on a weekly basis how many positive team members and how many positive residents we have in the building. We want to be transparent and honest with them.”
Infected team members are issues that both Quinns have had to deal with. Meredith says that being short staffed has caused some problems, and asks for more understanding with long term care facilities. Since they are the ones caring for the most susceptible generation, the caretakers face an increased risk of catching the virus themselves.
“You have staff that are out because they're sick, and they can't come to work. You also have staff that are out because they don't have childcare right now, so they can't come to work. And then you also have staff that are out that are afraid and scared,” Quinn said. “These aids are making you know, 11 or 12 dollars an hour, and then you're expecting them to come in and put their life on the line, you know, it's very hard.”
Margaret described the fight against COVID-19 as “a grieving process”. She said at this point, she thinks she is at the point of acceptance, but is nervous about the future when families come to clean out their loved ones’ rooms.
“Two months down the road, it's going to all come back again because all these families are going to be coming into the communities, and I know that's going to be very emotional,” Quinn said.
Quinn said that she believes these events will leave a mark on her, and will be something she doesn’t think she’ll be able to forget.
Over the course of the pandemic, some hospitals and long term care facilities have received anonymous acts of kindness to commemorate healthcare workers. As a sign of support from the community, a physical sign was given to Margaret’s facility anonymously.
“It's right where the employees walk in, and they were like, ‘where did that sign come from’ and I'm like, ‘I don't know, someone just put it there’,” Quinn said. “The staff really appreciate that.”
Both Quinns say to those on the outside of their world, they appreciate the support they are receiving from the community. They are hopeful for that support to continue, and hope that there can be more understanding for the impossible task they are trying to do.
Comments