7/5/2020
Dear Maristhill Residents and Families,
I am pleased to inform you that on July 2, 2020 new guidance from the Department of Public Health regarding visits to residents had been distributed to nursing facilities. The new guidance keeps many of the previous guidelines for social distancing, facemask requirements, advance scheduling, availability of outdoor space, permissible weather conditions and staff availability in place. The changes that are added to the new guidance are the increase in visitation time to be offered to no fewer than 30 minute increments, at least five days a week including one day during the weekend and one day with visits offered outside the standard business hours. We have prior to this change in the guidelines scheduled time slot visits for the next two weeks. The facility will make every effort to implement these changes as quickly as possible given the short notification by the Department of Public Health.
In addition the facility will be testing all of our staff again by July 19th that had previously tested negative. The testing of staff will allow us to establish another baseline timeline for the status of our staff regarding COVID-19. The testing will occur at least every two weeks thru September 30th. Any staff person testing positive will be quarantined per Department of Public Health and CDC guidelines. In the event that a staff member tests positive for COVID-19 the facility will test all COVID negative residents in order to monitor their status for any signs and symptoms of the virus.
We ask that our residents and staff do all that they can to support our facility and our community by following the recommendations set forth by the CDC and DPH:
• Social Distancing/staying home if possible and wear a facemask in public;
• Washing Hands for 20 seconds with soap and water or use a hand sanitizer;
• Self-isolating if showing any signs or symptoms of COVID-19; and
• Seek medical assistance as necessary
We wish to remind you that we have updated our Maristhill website and we hope that this updated version will be helpful for the families to keep in contact with the activities and news from Maristhill. We can be followed on Facebook and Twitter as well. We had a story in the Parade Magazine last Sunday regarding the visitation program at Maristhill and this was one of 50 national positive stories concerning the COVID pandemic. Please visit us at www.Maristhill.org.
Thank you all for your support. We will provide updates regularly and we will continue to call daily those families that have COVID + loved ones. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Regards,
James Tracy
James Tracy,
President
