Update from Administrator – January 7, 2020
Dear Families and Friends,
We have had a few more residents come back positive for COVID. In conjunction with the Rhode Island Department of Health we have decided to stop sending the residents to our sister facility and instead house them on our 2nd floor that we have turned into an isolation unit. Having the unique ability to house them on a completely separate floor really allows us to go above and beyond the minimum guidance for housing COVID (+) residents. While there were pros to being able to send (+)’s to a sister facility – there were cons to that system as well. We had been working on creating an isolation unit on the 2nd floor since right before Christmas as a back-up plan and we sat down as a group yesterday morning and decided that starting to use that unit was now the best option. Our entire team has stepped up to help, both working on the logistics of the unit and for staffing the unit. We follow specific protocol to ensure that no one that works on that unit goes into any other part of the building through out the day. They have a separate exit to the building and staff even have an area to change their clothes and shower prior to leaving for the day.
I know this is a big change and the idea of keeping positives in the building might be scary to some, but it helps to give us a lot more control of the situation. We are not accepting any COVID (+) from the hospital – we are only housing our own existing residents.
Please let me know if you any questions, comments, or concerns.
Thank you,
Nicholas Lutzel
Administrator