Have I got the perfect idea for an April Fools’ Day joke.
Close all the schools. Shutter all the restaurants. Don’t let people go to work. Make everyone walk six feet away from each other outside.
If only the reality we are living in were a hoax. And as many might agree, there are moments when this whole situation feels so surreal it could be a joke.
But then I read a news story about the death of a prominent surgeon or a nursing home administrator, or ICUs filled to capacity. Or a nursing home evacuating its residents to create a facility for COVID-19 treatment, or millions being out of work, and I am lurched back to the here and now. We are living in a singular time, a public health crisis whose end is not in sight and which threatens to upend so many of the trappings of normal life we take for granted.
But as many who have lived through past trying times can attest, such unreal days also forge that unique substance called character. It can be found in the most unexpected places. The nurse who takes an extra shift to cover for a colleague even though her family at home needs her. A company that steps up to provide free footwear to frontline employees during the pandemic. A political figure who makes the difficult choices, such as enforcing a stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the virus in his state.
This week, a nursing facility in Massachusetts and its leaders showed their character. When asked by state officials, Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester County opted to become the commonwealth’s first facility geared to the care and treatment of those with COVID-19 disease. As the CEO of the facility expressed so clearly on a Facebook post, this was not an easy decision. Matt Salmon readily apologized for the disruption this caused, but he said that he did not feel he had a choice but to make the pioneering move.
“I feel it’s in our best interest to protect all of our residents by evacuating Beaumont at Worcester, creating a COVID-specific building that UMass Medical and St. Vincent’s Hospital can discharge COVID-positive patients to, where we can provide proper treatment for them without increasing the risk of infections among our seniors,” he said. “My worst fear is having mass outbreaks in nursing homes across the state because we are required or need to take COVID-positive residents.”
Clearly, we did not plan for or desire to be in a mess like this. But it will be the hard choices, the courageous actions, that will help us make it to the other side.
Liza Berger is the Senior Editor at McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
