Holmes County Home director pleased with 2020 progress
The Holmes County Home is working on creating a large private room where it can quarantine prospective residents safely for 14 days.
Early this year when COVID-19 was rampant, the Holmes County Home went to a no-visitation policy, which was difficult on the residents and their families but seemed to pay off in the long run. Miller reported they have had no cases in any residents or staff members, so while the lack of visitation was difficult, it was successful.
“Everybody was and still is being very diligent and doing a good job,” County Home executive director Deb Miller said.
The County Home did lessen its restrictions and is now allowing family visitations June 8, albeit most of them outside with plenty of restrictions involved to provide the highest quality safety and care for its residents and staff.
Miller said their stockpile of personal protective equipment remains strong, and should another bout of COVID-19 occur in the area, they are more than ready.
“I know that lack of visitation was very difficult on our residents,” Miller said. “But families and visitors were all very understanding and cooperative. Even now that we have gone back to visitations, visitors have been great with the screening and wearing the masks. That has been a huge blessing for our residents. They are much happier and are enjoying getting to connect with their loved ones.”
Miller said as weather changes and flu season re-enters the picture, they may have to adapt some things.
Miller said another way they have been giving residents added social time away from their rooms is through country rides, where they take a van full of residents out so they can enjoy nature and a breath of fresh air away from the home yet safe from people.
“We are fortunate we are able to provide things like that for our residents,” Miller said. “They are doing great despite all of the obstacles we have been facing lately.”
With daycare, admissions and respite, the County Home has seen its number of residents decline in recent months, and Miller said that can’t go on forever. She said she has been in talks with Dr. Yasser Omran, M.D. at Pomerene Hospital, who serves as the County Home medical director, to discuss options.
Omran said as long as residents went through an official 14-day quarantine, the home could begin accepting new residents. Miller said the problem is they don’t have private rooms with private bathrooms, making quarantining difficult.
However, with little space in which to quarantine potential residents, Miller said they are seeking options as to how they can best provide quarantine in the space they have. She said one option is to take one of the home’s larger upstairs rooms and renovate it to create a quarantine room with a private bathroom. That would allow them to reinstitute the application and admission process.
“That way we can bring individuals in one at a time for the 14-day quarantine period,” Miller said. “It is still going to be a long process because you have to wait 14 days to bring another person in, but it will be a starting point to get new people in.”
Miller said initial discussions have put an estimate at remodeling that room at between $12,000 and $15,000.
“That’s a good use for the stimulus money,” commissioner Rob Ault said. “We want to use it for things that will help improve our county.”
Miller said while they have had a few people express concerns about them allowing visitations, they are doing so for the health of the residents, and every precaution is being taken to increase the safety level.
Miller reported at the end of July the County Home expenses were at 49%, which is identical to where it was in July 2019 in expenditures. Miller said that overall, expenses were up $15,000, which she said was due to salary increases.
“We are almost right where we were last year, which is where we want to be, despite all of the extra expenses we have had from dealing with COVID-19,” Miller said.
As for revenue, Miller reported the County Home was at about 38% of its estimated revenue in June, which was the same as it was in 2019. She added that overall, they were down about $8,000 in their budget.
“Some of that is because we are not doing any new admissions, respite care or daycare right now,” Miller said. “On the plus side, we will be applying some of the economic stimulus funding that our residents received to our board and care.”
Miller said they have eight residents who received the $1,200 stimulus package, and they made sure they could apply that to each resident’s outstanding balance.
“We gave them $200 to spend how they wanted and applied the other $1,000 to their board and care,” Miller said. “We ran that past Sean Warner, and he said that was absolutely something we could do based on our policy.”
The County Home will focus now on upcoming projects they have on the horizon. Miller said that list includes the switching of the home’s television service from cable to Direct TV, something she said will not only improve the quality for residents, but also save them money.
“It’s quite a bit cheaper, but most important to me is the customer service end of it,” Miller said. “It has been difficult to get issues resolved, and this new package we can do remotely, which makes it better and even simpler for our residents overall.”
Miller said all of the residents have the option of having a television in their room.