New COVID-19 nursing home rule reunites familes in Rock Hill region. What to know.
The way they were seated, on the front porch of HarborChase of Riverwalk assisted living center in Rock Hill on Sept. 4, the McLamb family looked like they were having a completely normal late afternoon visit.
Beverly, the mom, and Scott, the son, sat outside the building. And Charlie, the dad, was inside, sitting quietly behind a wall of clear plexiglass and communicating via radio.
“Don’t you love it here, Dad?” Scott, 32, asked Charlie.
Charlie flashed a smile and mustered a soft response: “Food’s great.”
Scott and Beverly checked Charlie, 73, into HarborChase in May. When Charlie moved in, Beverly said she had to leave all his apartment furniture and decorations and personal belongings on the back deck for the staff to take inside — a sign of the coronavirus times.
Charlie’s family talked to him on the phone, and they knew he was in loving, caring hands, Beverly said. But still, through the first few months of his stay at HarborChase, it didn’t feel normal talking and waving through a window.
A few days before that McLamb family visit, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced a new policy allowing nursing homes to host in-person, undivided visits after months of not being able to do that.
Note: Before assisted living centers can allow in-person visits, they must submit plans to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control for approval. On Sept. 4, when The Herald visited the site, HarborChase had not yet been approved to offer limited outdoor visitation.
In the spring, McMaster ordered visitations to stop at nursing homes, except in end-of-life situations, after coronavirus outbreaks were reported in different assisted living communities around the state. From April 3 to the first of September, 4,887 nursing home residents and 2,506 staff members had tested positive for COVID-19, and over 1,000 nursing home residents had died from the virus.
HarborChase at Riverwalk, which opened in late January, hasn’t had a positive COVID-19 case in its facility, said director of sales Jeannie Jenkins. She told The Herald that the HarborChase staff and their residents have made the best of the situation. They’ve held a “car parade,” where 30-35 cars drove by and held up signs for their loved ones, and they’ve also hosted other events that engaged the families of residents.
“Really, because we’ve been thinking outside that box since day one, the only difference now is that they’re not going to have that plexiglass in between them,” Jenkins said. “They’re just going to have six feet in between them. There are still going to be some rules in place.”
Among those state-enforced rules, which apply to all such facilities are:
▪ Visitors are only allowed to stay 15 minutes each. However, if they can provide a negative COVID-19 antigen or PCR test performed within the last five days or provide a positive antibody test performed within the last 30 days, they can visit for an hour.
▪ Only two visitors are allowed to visit a resident at a time.
▪ All visits have to be outside and socially distanced.
▪ And before being able to offer these limited outdoor visits, assisted living facilities must have no positive cases among staff and residents within the last 14 days.
Louise Jackson, who was seeing her sister, Virginia, through a window on Sept. 4, said the fact that HarborChase hasn’t had any coronavirus cases is comforting.
“I’m glad they didn’t have a case here,” Jackson said. “Because if it did, it would have probably really upset us. But since they haven’t had one, that makes us feel so much better. And we just pray and hope it stays out.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 2:27 PM.
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