CONNECTICUT, USA — Department of Public Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford recently received a letter requesting to change visitation policies for residents of nursing homes and chronic disease hospitals.
According to a news release sent to FOX61 Thursday, a letter sent to Gifford stated residents within those healthcare facilities urgently need visits with close family members and other caregivers who can provide support while maintaining safety protocols.
Under the Nursing Home Reform Act mentioned in the letter, “all residents of nursing facilities, regardless of the level of disability, must be provided with services to allow them to attain or maintain the highest practicable, physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being. On June 22, the Department of Public Health released guidelines that allow limited outdoor visits that “infringe on the rights of residents of nursing homes and chronic disease hospitals, and unduly exclude people with disabilities from programs...”
The letter also outlined the following proposed standards for indoor visitation in nursing homes and chronic disease hospitals:
Indoor visiting for support persons at every nursing home in Connecticut, so long as there are no new COVID-19 positive tests in the facility in the last 14 days and the community transmission rate is low. The implementation of this can vary from facility to facility.
Visitors must comply with the nursing home’s safety protections, which shall include, at a minimum, PPE, social distancing, symptom screening, temperature checks, and provision of contact information from visitors which can be used for contact tracing.
The nursing home may impose a reasonable COVID-19 testing requirement on visitors, at the option of the nursing home, consistent with its testing of staff.
The nursing home must provide all PPE as required for visitors
The purpose of the proposed visitation guidelines is to provide the right balance between protecting the public health of those within the health facilities while assuring the state complies with their obligations for residents to maintain physical, mental, and psychosocial needs.
