SEMINOLE, Fla. — Residents and staff at nursing homes and other care facilities were among those most impacted by the pandemic.

A report released last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says more than 1,300 nursing homes nationwide had infection rates of 75% or higher during surge periods. 

What You Need To Know

  • The second week of March marks five years since Florida long-term care facilities went on lockdown in an effort to prevent COVID-19 from spreading among vulnerable residents

  • A report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says challenges faced by nursing homes included staffing shortages, infection control and testing protocols

  • The interim director of USF's School of Aging Studies says many facilities still implement COVID precautions and are trying to build their workforces

  • State law has also changed to allow long-term care and hospital patients to have an essential caregiver with them, as long as they follow safety protocols

Dr. Debra Dobbs, interim director of the University of South Florida’s School of Aging Studies, said that staffing and protective gear shortages were among the challenges facilities faced. Dobbs said many COVID-era precautions are still in place, with several still struggling to attract workers.

“Trying to get staff back — nurses, CNAs and incentives for signing on. They did lose a lot, the industry in general. Both assisted living and nursing homes lost. Severe staffing shortage during COVID,” said Dobbs.

Brandon Tucker, assistant administrator at The Vineyard Inn, said that wasn’t an issue faced by his team at the Seminole assisted living facility.

“We pride ourselves in our staff longevity. I have an employee that has worked for us for 37 years. I have quite a few employees that worked for my grandparents for over 20 years,” said Tucker. “So, with our staffing, we’ve never had to go and use an outside agency.”

According to Dobbs, that’s an advantage similar facilities didn’t have.

“Assisted living’s different than nursing homes. Nursing homes have more staff. They have more regulations, federal regulations. Some of the key issues would be, for example, because they have fewer staff, all kinds of staff in assisted living in contrast to nursing homes, there’s a lot of care that’s provided by outside providers, which we call third-party providers — home health care comes in. That created a situation for more infection to enter the building,” said Dobbs.

The HHS report says the main challenges faced by nursing homes during the pandemic included “monumental and ongoing staffing challenges”, along with testing protocol, vaccination rate and infection control struggles.

Tucker said a state mandate limiting visitors helped The Vineyard Inn avoid a major outbreak. While life has largely returned to normal outside, everyone who walks through the front door has to get their temperature taken and fill out a health screening.

“I’m saying, ‘Yes, I had a normal temperature, I haven’t had a fever in the last 24 hours, and I have not had contact with anyone confirmed or suspected of having COVID-19,’” Tucker said as he demonstrated the sign-in procedure. 

He said the facility also remains stocked up on protective gear, hand sanitizer and COVID tests.

“From a nursing standpoint, we do trainings on infection control. We’ve always had those trainings, but it’s more in-depth as to airborne infections,” Tucker said.

COVID also brought about changes to state law. Jacksonville resident Mary Daniel made national headlines after she got a job at her husband's memory care facility just to be able to be with him during the lockdown. Daniel said placing him in memory care in 2019, six years after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at 59 years old, was the hardest decision she ever had to make. Still, she said he thrived there.

“He absolutely loved it there. He had a seat at the front desk. He thought he worked there. They had a name badge for him, and he greeted everyone that walked in the door,” Daniel said. “He was doing very, very well.”

Daniel said she visited him every evening after she got out of work — until March 12, 2020. That was the day she said she was told she couldn’t come back due to COVID restrictions. 

“I had promised Steve that I would be with him every, single day, that he would never be alone, and that I would hold his hand every, single day of this journey. I needed to be with him,” she said. 

She began talking to reporters about the impact isolation was having on him. According to Daniel, he lost ten pounds in the first month.

“We had two window visits, and he cried both times. It was not productive. He was not able to speak. He could speak, but I couldn’t understand anything that he said. So, there was no talking over phone, there was no talking over FaceTime,” said Daniel.

After 114 days of isolation, the two were reunited after Daniel accepted a job as a dishwasher at the facility. She became an advocate from there, founding the group Caregivers for Compromise and pushing for the passage of the state's No Patient Left Alone Act.

“Our law says that every resident in long-term care and every patient in a hospital will have the right to an essential caregiver who can be with them, following the same safety protocols as staff,” Daniel said. 

At the Vineyard, Tucker said they do still occasionally see COVID cases, reinforcing the importance of keeping up with prevention measures.

“Everyone here is family. I know I said the residents, but it’s also the staff, the residents’ family members — they’re all family,” he said. 

The HHS report made recommendations for steps the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid can take to help facilities with challenges. They include expanding policies to strengthen the workforce, reassess training and certification requirements for nurses’ aides, and updating requirements for infection control.