Health Officer: ‘We Need To Find Ways To Connect’ With Seniors
Health Officer: ‘We Need To Find Ways To Connect’ With Seniors
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Health Officer: ‘We Need To Find Ways To Connect’ With SeniorsSenior citizens are the most at risk for COVID-19, and the negative effect the pandemic and isolation is having on them has become more than noticeable to those who work with the elderly.
At the county commissioners meeting Tuesday, Kosciusko County Senior Services Director David Neff pointed out that seniors are depressed, gaining weight and some have been isolated for so long they have difficulty in formulating words.
When Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington was asked during Wednesday’s weekly press conference about that and what he was seeing with the older segment of the population, he agreed with Neff’s observation.
“That observation is absolutely correct and it resonates strongly with me, a private primary care physician with a significant geriatric population. I have felt that in the exam room just this morning,” Remington responded. “We need to find ways to connect with the vulnerable aspects of the population, particularly our older members of the community.”
He said one of the increasingly discussed issues that he increasingly is feeling passionate about is that, “We probably need to rethink the extreme reduction of visitation that has gone on in healthcare facilities. That has been really rough. But I think one of the lessons learned from this pandemic will be how to figure this out a little differently so that we do not create problems that you mentioned (depression, weight gain, unable to formulate words).”
Whether it’s an in-patient hospital stay, nursing home stay, “In these vulnerable moments of our life, we need an advocate at our side. We do. And socially, we need it; medically it’s good to have that. And I think now, what I have seen in documentation, to me, from the State Department of Health, regarding nursing home visitations, that they have been seeing this and they are loosening it up a bit to allow protected visitation, so look for that. Family members with a loved one in a nursing home or hospital stay, find a way to connect. Really go out of your way to try to do that.”
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said he’s got a neighbor who is going to be able to see her mother for the first time in three months. Her mom is in Fort Wayne, and all the family members will be there – social distancing and wearing masks – and they’ll be allowed to come face to face and have discussions “and that warmth that is so desperately needed.”
From the beginning, Thallemer said, besides talking about taking care of yourself with all the social distancing measures, they’ve discussed checking in on your family and your neighbors.
“Still continues to be something that’s important, especially elderly neighbors that are alone,” Thallemer said. “I know Mom just likes seeing us and hearing from us, and it has been a little less than we normally do. I know how lonely it makes her feel. She lives alone. It’s not easy.”
At the June 3 weekly press briefing, Bowen Center CEO Kurt Carlson addressed more general mental health issues.
“The elderly, especially living alone, the isolation is tough,” Thallemer said.
Earlier in the briefing, Remington stated, “We are still in the midst of a significant outbreak with COVID for our community. We had our first case on March 26 and it took us two months to get to the 100th case. It took us a week to get to the 200th case, and we had an additional 50-some cases in the five days (since). But we didn’t get another 100 cases in five days, so I’m thankful for that. But this is a significant surge. We do have a different framework of testing today, but nevertheless, this surge is real and probably more substantial than the surge we experienced two months ago but could not test very completely at that time.”
He said the frontlines are “feeling it a bit,” but he didn’t sense “we have a swamped local health resource at this time.”
Asked later if there’s been a surge of healthcare workers testing positive, Remington said, “I have not heard that anecdotely and I don’t have that metric. There have been cases here and there all along, among healthcare workers. Whether we are seeing a substantial surge now, I have not heard that in my conversations. I have not seen that either on a metric that’s landed on my lap.”
He said the potential for healthcare workers to develop COVID has been a real issue. There’s increasing data nationwide about that, but only time will tell, Remington said.
Over the last couple of weeks, mobile home park residents have been a concern as there have been a cluster of cases stemming from the parks.
Thallemer said volunteer fire departments and the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory are going to begin delivering masks to the mobile home parks that have been hardest hit. Those will go out later this week. About 300 masks will be distributed to a group of the larger, more-effected mobile home parks in the county. The fire departments will coordinate and distribute the masks to the mobile home parks offices.
“We appreciate all their work – last week with the door hangers and now this week with the masks,” Thallemer said.
While the masks won’t be delivered door to door, he said they’ll be in plastic bags at the park offices for residents to come and grab as they need.
Remington said, “As you know, we have put emphasis on a particular demographic, a clustering of cases that the mayor has mentioned, that continues to consume a fair amount of resources for us as we roll up our sleeves and do case investigation and contact tracing. And that demographic clustering is a significant percentage of this surge in cases in the last three weeks.”
Fortunately, at this time, he said they haven’t seen a large cluster of cases popping up anywhere else.
“I think at this point, we need to stay hunkered down to some degree. I am thankful the fair board cancelled the midway, the fair. We don’t know how this surge will look in another two to three weeks. I think any planner of a large event just needs to be really cautious, through at least the early part of July,” Remington said.
Social distancing, avoiding congregate settings – particularly indoors – masking and hand sanitizing are helpful.
“Please wear a mask when in a congregate setting you can not avoid, and when walking into a retail or commercial establishment, please have a mask on. I think it says a lot to those working within the confines of that business,” Remington said.
He said schools are on his mind “quite a bit. This surge of cases is unfortunate timing for our school administrators as they try to think about ramping up for fall. I think this will be a very challenging discussion.”
The Indiana State Department of Education last week came out with a “substantial document” for schools. The Indiana State Department of Health will be providing guidance to local health departments within a few days to help local departments “know their place within that document from the Indiana Department of Education.”
He reiterated Thallemer’s remarks that, “We don’t know how this will look in a few weeks and we’ve all had to work to be very flexible within this extremely dynamic pandemic. So I’m sobered by this outbreak coming late in our COVID experience as a nation, but I’m encouraged perhaps it’s tapered off a little bit, and I’m encouraged, as I’ve mentioned the last two weeks, that it’s within a framework of the CDC’s nationwide data shows improvement on many fronts. Pop-up regional issues, for sure, but overall, the 10,000-foot view on many of their graphics is one of improvement.”
