Texas Legacy Support Network is passing these Documents on to each of you. 8/08/2020

I am so pleased to share this article with you.  From Dena Reneau 8/8/2020

Looks like progress is being made with allowing families to visit their loved ones not only in skilled nursing facilities but memory care as well.  I’m sure Diane Akers sending you her request to email this issue regarding Coach Fred Akers and so many others in facilities confined to their room and not allowed to see family has caught the attention of so many caring UT fans and graduates and all Texans as well.

Thank you, Billy,  in behalf of me and my husband, Dr. Joe Reneau .  I’m hoping to be allowed to sit outside at an umbrella table with my mask on and perhaps wearing gloves being with him at a distance soon.   On March 14, 2020, families weren’t allowed inside these caring facilities to be with their loved ones….a lifetime.  

Dena Reneau

TEXAS TO ALLOW LIMITED VISITATION IN NURSING HOMES WITH NO ACTIVE CORONAVIRUS CASES

August 7, 2020

 After months of barring visitation at Texas nursing homes, the state announced it will allow visitors again, with lots of conditions.

 For the first time in nearly five months, visitors will be allowed in Texas nursing homes on a limited basis, state health officials announced Thursday evening, reversing a policy intended to keep the state’s most vulnerable populations safe from a pandemic that has proved especially deadly for older people.

Residents of Texas’ long-term care facilities have been separated from their family and friends for more than 140 days, since Gov. Greg Abbott shut down visitation in mid-March.

At long-term care facilities, some indoor visits will be permitted, provided there are plexiglass barriers, there are no active cases of the novel coronavirus among residents and there are no confirmed cases among staff in the last two weeks. Physical contact between residents and visitors will not be permitted, state officials said.

The restrictions are tighter on nursing facilities, which must test staff members weekly and can offer only outdoor visits.

“This is a rapidly evolving situation and we are constantly assessing what actions are necessary to keep residents and staff safe in these facilities,” said Phil Wilson, the acting executive commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services Commission. “By following these procedures and rules, facilities can more effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19 and help us achieve our shared goal of reuniting residents with their families and friends.”

The dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 cases across Texas in June and July led to another surge in long-term care facilities, with 57% of nursing homes still reporting at least one active case Thursday. Deaths in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities account for more than a third of Texas’ death toll.

Despite the need to protect a high-risk population, families and advocates have been urging the state to allow for limited visitation.

“Families are just desperate right now to be able to see their loved ones,” Alexa Schoeman, deputy state ombudsman in HHSC’s office of the long-term care ombudsman, said in an interview last week.

Kevin Warren, president and CEO of the Texas Health Care Association, called Thursday’s announcement “a great step forward.” In an interview last week, he said reconnecting families with their loved ones was “a priority” and that “it should be done as quickly as we can.”

Some Texas lawmakers had been agitating for a policy change for weeks. Last month, state Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney, and state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, along with dozens of other signatories, asked state health officials to loosen restrictions on visitations for patients with memory difficulties and mental disabilities.

“We will not stand to let these Texans fall through the cracks,” they wrote.

ARTICLE BY SARAH R. CHAMPAGNE AND EMMA PLATOFF, texastribune.org

From Rey Moreno

rey moreno

Fri 8/7/2020 5:32 PM

To: BILLY DALE

Texas announced visitation opportunities to those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

I was able to talk to Tarrant County state legislators, all have received calls from families in same circumstances as the Akers. My uncle is a patient in an Alzheimer’s unit in Houston.
Thanks your hard work.

Rey Moreno

Request from Diane Akers 7/30/2020

My name is Diane Akers, wife and loved one of Coach Fred Akers and I need help for myself, my husband, children, grandchildren and countless others.

PLEASE HELP ME AND THE UNTOLD THOUSANDS OF VICTIMS OF THIS UNREASONABLE DICTATE. We are begging you to LET US IN! We are asking for the citizens of our great state of Texas to help us. Please contact your state representatives, and demand the lifting of the family dictates in our assisted living, memory care and nursing homes. They deserve it!

This post is in regard to Senator Dawn Buckingham’s official call to action which was supported by numerous senate members.

Coach Akers is the victim of dementia, a debilitating disease that has robbed him of his memory and his life as we knew it. As his disease progressed it became psychically impossible for me to care for him at home even with a fulltime care giver. Sadly, and with great grief I was forced to send him to a nearby nice Memory Care facility with good people and good care. As a result of this Covid dictate I am no longer able to communicate with him, nor touch, hug or hold him as the State of Texas has “locked” down memory care and nursing homes due to the virus. By state law he is isolated in one room as the Covid scare raised its ugly head at our facility. He is alone, frightened, confused and most concerning, he is declining. This quarantine seems similar to solitary confinement in prison where lack of contact is part of the punishment.

Fred Akers is a Texas Icon. He coached the Texas Longhorns for 19 years. He was one of the winningest coaches in Longhorn history. He has personally helped hundreds of young men in the field of athletics. He is a three time all American in football and is in the Texas Hall of Fame plus five other Hall of Fame awards.

It is time to stop the draconian measures undertaken by the State of Texas in forbidding loved ones and family members from seeing our senior citizens in assisted living, memory care and nursing facilities except through windows. Remember, most of the memory care residents including my husband, have no idea WHY their loved ones cannot come in and see them and hold their hand.

As a result, elder citizens that have worked all their lives, contributed to society in so many ways are now actual “prisoners’ of these facilities with no visitors allowed. We are allowed to only see them through the windows of the facility. I have seen residents locked in their rooms crying and clawing at the windows to try and touch and see their families. What are we doing? Are we trying to protect them from dying of the virus, or I ask, is dying of old age, loneliness, fear and panic better?

Families are put through untold sorrow, misery and helplessness as we watch our loved ones die a slow death of isolation. Why? Why can I go to Walmart but not see my beloved husband??

I am asking for the State of Texas to let us back in. If we continue with these laws that separate us from our loved ones will it be too late for the SAD, LONELY, ISOLATED PRSIONERS OF THESE FACILITIES? Yes, we need to adhere to mitigation measures, need to follow all the CDC guidelines. Why can’t we be subjected to the same standards that the caregivers that work in the facility and interact daily with our loved ones be given to us? Is there a difference?