Dear Family and Friends of South Cove Manor:
Last week, I wrote to you about an upcoming change in the Massachusetts Depart of Public Health’s visitation policy for skilled nursing facilities. Since these changes were announced on September 14th, our staff have been working hard to operationalize these policies in order to continue to keep our residents, staff, and visitors safe.
As a result, beginning this Friday, September 25, 2020, we will begin allowing indoor visitation at South Cove Manor.
We have established two indoor visitation spaces, both located in our rehabilitation room. For those of you that have taken advantage of our outdoor visitation program this summer, the rehabilitation room is the room adjacent to the rear parking area and patio space where we have been hosting our outdoor visits.
Our goal in establishing the program, was to make as few changes as possible to our current outdoor visitation program, and just move the venue for the visits inside. For family members coming to visit, the majority of the process remains the same:
- The established visitation schedules remain the same. Visits will continue to be scheduled for 30 minutes each;
- You will still be screened by our staff at the front entrance.
- You will still proceed towards the back of the building after being successfully screened.
- Once you arrive at the rear parking lot, our staff will meet you at the rear door that enters directly into our rehabilitation room, where your family member will be waiting to greet you.
- A maximum of 4 visitors will be allowed for each scheduled visit.
- All visitors and residents are still required to wear masks throughout the visit.
- Visitors must continue to maintain a 6-foot separation for the majority of the visits, with one exception that I will speak to below.
The Department of Public Health has made one significant change as it relates to direct physical contact between residents and visitors. The following text is taken directly from the guidance issued by DPH:
- Brief physical contact may be allowed if desired by both the resident and visitor. In order to reduce risk of transmission, individuals must:
- Use Alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol before and after contact:
- Hug with faces in opposite directions; and
- Limit the duration of close physical contact and avoid close face-to-face contact even when face masks are used.
South Cove Manor will provide appropriate hand sanitizing stations for both residents, and visitors inside the rehabilitation room. At no time will visitors be allowed to enter any other space in the building other than the designated visiting areas – this includes rest rooms. Visitors will enter and exit the building only through the rear door to the rehabilitation room. In order to ensure that South Cove Manor remains in compliance with these regulations, our staff will continue to monitor all visits.
Some additional things to keep in mind:
Our outdoor visitation space will remain intact, and available for scheduled visits. If the resident chooses, and weather permits, the outdoor visitation space may be used instead of the indoor space.
Any visitor that develops signs and symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, myalgia, chills, or new onset loss of smell or taste within 2 days after visiting must immediately notify the facility of the date they visited, the individuals they came in contact with, and the locations within the facility they visited. South Cove Manor will then immediately screed the individuals who had contact with the visitor for the level of exposure and follow up with the facility’s medical director or resident’s physician.
You may also recall that back in March, we re-purposed our rehabilitation room to be the space within our building where we would care for any resident that had contracted COVID-19. While we have thankfully never had to utilize the space for that purpose, the plan to use it for that purpose remains intact. If a resident does ultimately test positive for the virus, the rehabilitation room will cease to be our indoor visitation location, and will be used as our COVID positive unit. If that were to happen, I would immediately notify all of you of that fact, and we would establish an alternate indoor visitation plan.
To summarize, if you already have visits scheduled, you do not need to do anything different. Simply arrive at the building 10-15 minutes prior to your scheduled time and follow the same procedures you have ben following. If you have not been participating in our visitation program, please contact Tammy Chen, our activity director, for more information, and scheduling availability. Feel free to contact me with any questions that you may have.
Thank you again for placing your trust in South Cove Manor.
