While Blue Ridge Assisted Living & Memory Care may still be closed to the public, they have implemented front porch visits so that their residents can spend socially distanced time with their loved ones as the facility moves into their seventh month dealing with COVID-19 regulations and restrictions.
“As we learn more about the virus, we’re learning that we can come outside, be masked and practice good social distancing, and therefore that seems to have helped, in some respects, with families being able to see their loved ones and the loved ones being able to see their families,” Executive Director Faron Barton said. “We’re actually able to let them eat in the dining room, social distanced, and we’re COVID-19 free. We’ve been COVID-19 free. We’ve had no one with symptoms since day one.”
Senior Lifestyle Counselor Cindy Querry described the front porch visits as “wonderful.”
She said, “They (residents) love it.”
Barton spoke to the facility’s quick action, which helped to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the facility.
“It’s been trying,” Barton said of the past six months. “It’s been a difficult time overall, but we’re getting through it. We took the lead from day one. We started working the issues of basically shutting things down. We went through a period, just like everybody else, with residents staying in their rooms for about two weeks. Then as we started testing, and we’ve tested in some cases up to about 300%, as we started seeing what we were up against with testing, we were able to open things up.”
They recently received a shipment of rapid COVID-19 tests, and are able to test and see results within 15 minutes if necessary.
Resident Nancy McDowell was able to visit with her sister, Sheryle Roach, thanks to the implementation of the front porch visits.
“It’s hard on everyone,” Roach said while discussing the COVID-19 pandemic. “When Nancy gets upset, I can’t comfort her, but these people (facility staff) do a great job, because they care. I really believe they care.”
The facility is open to new residents coming into to lease.
“We’ve kept our doors open to that because we know that that need is still there whether COVID-19 is going on or not,” Querry said. “We have some really strict screening processes for them to be in the building, but we’ve been successful in doing that.