My friend Dottie.  I’ve written about her before.  She recently turned 97 years old and I was honored to be with her that day…when her family and beloved friends were not able to be with her because of Covid restrictions.

The sad reality is that few residents of senior living facilities have regular visits from family and beloved friends.  But those family members and friends that do visit their loved ones are loyal, and intentional, and devoted to bringing love and companionship and advocacy and care.  

And for the past eight months, those few devoted visitors have been cut out of in-person visits because of the response to Covid.  

We are seeing more and more articles relating the dramatic Covid-era demise of our folks living in senior facilities, with cause of death now being documented as “failure to thrive”, or “Covid isolation”.  And we keep hearing the realities of weight loss, and dramatic decline in physical and cognitive health; increased falls, and people who stop eating, stop leaving their rooms, stop interacting.  And I ask myself, “Isn’t this the natural result we would expect from the isolation imposed on folks as a response to Covid?”  We know that most humans do best when they have relationship and interaction with the people they love.

Fortunately, some leaders are starting to suggest other options to isolation and lockdown, and urging policymakers to re-think Covid restrictions: 

“At the same time, policymakers need to weigh the competing risks, said David Grabowski, a health policy professor at Harvard Medical School, who recently served on an independent federal commission that recommended expanding in-person visitation at long-term care facilities.”

“We’ve locked these older adults in their rooms in the name of safety without thinking about the unintended consequences here,” Grabowski said. “In many respects, the side effects are worse than the potential harm of a slightly higher risk of infection.”

It will take courage on the part of leaders and policymakers to open up senior care facilities to visits from loved ones.  But the article cited above proposes a good idea:  declare those devoted family and beloved friend visitors “essential.”  Make it an option for those visitors to adhere to the same Covid protocols as a facility’s employees.  The family members I have spoken with said they would do this in a heartbeat!

It is becoming increasingly clear that we may be doing more harm than good with the social restrictions imposed on our seniors living in care facilities.  That by restricting in-person, indoor, and visits where loved ones are allowed to touch one another, we are contributing to poor quality of life, the antithesis of well-being, and loss of life.  Surely this is not what we would label as “care”.

Troubled, and ready to see policymakers and senior care community leadership progress their Covid-related decisions with “care”-focused solutions,

Jill

©Jill Couch