October 1, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
After months of being closed to outside visitors due to COVID-19, NHC Healthcare Center of Smithville and the Webb House Retirement Center will soon reopen but not in the traditional manner.
Families and others wishing to see patients and residents at either facility must register in advance to schedule their visits and adhere to a set of conditions. Reopening protocols differ slightly between the two facilities. Should the pandemic get worse, NHC and the Webb House might have to again close to the public.
Ryan Vaden, Administrator of NHC in Smithville and Lora Webb, Administrator of the Webb House Retirement Center made a joint appearance on WJLE Wednesday to explain the protocols for the reopening. Both facilities are sending out letters explaining the conditions to families of patients and residents they serve.
(click link below to read NHC letter)
(click link below to read Webb House Retirement Center letter)
NHC is governed primarily by two regulatory bodies, the Tennessee Department of Health and the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The Webb House is governed by the TDH as an assisted living long term care facility.
As for NHC, Vaden said preparing a reopening plan that meets the state and federal guidelines has been challenging.
“When the visitation guidelines were released by Governor Bill Lee a couple of weeks ago, CMS released their own guidelines the same day so we have had to marry those two together to develop our own policies and procedures as a company at NHC and that is what we have been working on very diligently over the last couple of weeks to meet the expectations at both the state and federal level”.
“We understand that it has been very difficult for families to have been separated from their loved ones and at the Webb House we want them to all be together as much as possible but we are held to the direction and policies of the Tennessee Department of Health and the Governor. People often don’t understand and somehow think we are making up our own rules but these COVID-19 policies which have kept us closed to the public were passed on to us. They were never initiated by us at the Webb House. We are governed by the state and have a license we must go by,” said Webb.
Vaden explained what families will be receiving in the mail from NHC.
“Inside the information packet we are sending out there are specific instructions on how family members can register for visits to see their loved ones but this is not visitation like it used to be,” said Vaden. “We will have to be more structured than we were prior to the COVID-19 shutdown. These visits will be scheduled in advance and they will be in 30 minute blocks. Our staff at NHC will be the ones helping facilitate these visits. Social distancing will apply. We will have face masks and partition barriers to keep the risk at bay as much as possible. We will be screening people as they come in,” Vaden said.
At NHC the scheduled visits will take place outside in the courtyard during day time hours seven days a week and families and others will be subject to screenings. Vaden said visitors are also asked to get tested for COVID-19 before scheduling a visit. Visitors must be at least 18 years of age. Vaden said the reason for that is because sometimes younger children don’t understand social distancing and its hard for them to practice that.
Families at NHC will not be permitted to visit during meal times. “That is a very busy time at the center as far as assisting patients and our staff won’t be able to support visits during meal times so our visits will be scheduled in between meals,” said Vaden.
Should someone at NHC test positive for COVID-19, Vaden said public visits will temporarily be put on hold again. “Once that 14 day quarantine time period is up and we have no additional positive cases then we could resume visitation as previously scheduled”.
Under these guidelines, families will not be permitted to take their loved ones off the premises at NHC.
“These guidelines are about the public coming to us and not necessarily our patients and residents going out into the public. For us at NHC, we are still only allowing medically necessary trips outside the center. There have been questions recently about taking patients/residents to weddings, funerals and things like that and we really wish we could allow that but these new guidelines don’t speak to those types of trips and visits outside of the center,” Vaden said.
Webb said family visits must also be scheduled in advance at the Webb House Retirement Center.
“We are starting our visitation on Friday, October 2. For now we will not be able to do porch visits, but we have built an inside visitation room which is available by appointment only and visits are limited to 45 minutes. We have divided this room in half with a plexi-glass barrier so the family can enter from the outside into this room to visit with their loved ones in a safe manner. Because of this barrier we will not require visitors have a COVID test but we will still be screening people as they enter and sanitize in between visits. We will be doing everything we can to keep exposure down but if we should have another COVID case we will have to lock back down again,” said Webb.
Since the facilities closed to the public in March, families have had to find alternate means of making contact with their loved ones.
“Families haven’t been able to come to our facility for a long time so for us the primary way for them to make contact is through virtual visits and we use a couple of different platforms for that including FaceTime and Google Duo. We also offer window visits. I know that is not the same as being with their loved ones but at least you get to see them face to face,” said Vaden.
“Most of our residents at the Webb House have cell phones and FaceTime has been a wonderful tool to use. People are emailing each other more and we have seen an increase in the postal mail.
People are sending packages, cards, and writing letters more often,” said Webb.
The staff at both NHC and the Webb House have also stepped up to serve as surrogate family members during the pandemic.
“Our staff at NHC have had to fill in the gap. They already have a hard job under normal circumstances but now those circumstances are extremely difficult to work under. I am very proud of our team and how they have risen to the occasion and helped be that surrogate family member for birthdays and other occasions that patients have celebrated along the way in the absence of their families,” said Vaden