I Work in a Nursing Home on Lockdown. There Is So Much Loneliness Here.
By: Lauren Elizabeth
Tags: Covid 19, Mental Health, Health, Nursing Homes, Coronavirus

I Work in a Nursing Home on Lockdown. There Is So Much Loneliness Here.

How the coronavirus is affecting the day-to-day life of my residents — and my own mental health

A resident at the Leonard Florence Center for Living in Boston. Photo: Boston Globe/Getty Images

After the first case of the coronavirus was reported in our state of New York, day-to-day life at the nursing home where I work seemed to change overnight. As the medical director of our facility told the administrators, it’s not a matter of if the virus hits our area — but when.

The elderly residents I work with are among the most at-risk groups for a global pandemic that’s spreading faster than we can keep up. Many are now anxious for anything to occupy their time after state officials ruled that everyone except staff and medical personnel would be banned from entering the facility. Extreme circumstances warrant an exception, of course. But many of the 144 residents under our care are growing lonely and bored without their families.

“Are we going to have a movie this afternoon? Something, anything?” one resident asked me as I walked by him the other day. He’s been missing his son and their regular Dunkin’ coffee and football game time.

There wouldn’t be a movie playing that afternoon because the nursing staff needed the TV for a training session on how to deal with the coronavirus. Nursing homes and long-term care facilities have been under lockdown since the Covid-19 outbreak, which has seen a dramatic mortality rate among the elderly and chronically ill. In Washington state, as many as 35 coronavirus deaths have been linked back to a single nursing home.

I primarily work in the activities department, where we are in charge of the day-to-day entertainment for our residents. We are involved with everything from cooking to putting on monthly birthday parties, luncheons with our volunteers, casino outings, and, of course, their favorites: bingo and live music. I hated to tell my resident that afternoon that not only was the previously scheduled music session now canceled, but his movie was as well. The most important thing is that first and foremost my residents are safe and currently healthy. But oh, are they lonely.

They miss their families. They miss the volunteers and the live music. They miss the priests, and the kind elderly man who comes in to say the rosary and buys candy bars for bingo prizes every week before he leaves. One of my favorite residents has dementia and is clearly missing her daughter, who would come to the nursing home twice a day to spend time with her and assist with her meals.

All three sections of the nursing home have been separated completely, and many of my residents are not only feeling the absence of their families, but their friends as well. We’re proud of the sense of community we have built here, and we’re doing our best to preserve that, but all of us have felt the effects of these changes. Not only are activities now separated, but so are the dining tables in order to keep as many of them as possible six feet apart. Smiling familiar faces and voices are now hidden and muffled behind masks at all times. While the residents know it is for their safety, my heart can’t help but sympathize with the occasional resistance from those who wish they had more control over their circumstances.

As much as it’s affecting the day-to-day lives of my residents, I have to admit I’ve begun to notice it’s affecting my mental health as well.

It’s painful to know that my region is unprepared and ill-equipped to handle an outbreak.

Oftentimes, I am separated from co-workers who have become my family and help me get through the stresses of the day. I genuinely was not at all prepared to feel so distant from them, or to not always have them to fall back on and talk to when the day is getting a little too stressful. We are spread thin throughout the entire building, only seeing each other for brief 10-minute periods a couple of times a day unless we are specifically scheduled together for an activity that they know will require more help.

It becomes harder and harder to stay upbeat when your resident says she is going to postpone her chemo treatments because of the coronavirus; it gets even worse when you see news flash across her TV screen that a man on the nearby military base has tested positive. It’s not easy to act like I’m staying positive when I drive through the Main Street of my little town that’s become a ghost of what it was just a month before, wondering how all these little businesses are going to get through this.

Up until now, I never truly understood how much just scrolling through a social media feed is able to dictate my entire mood and outlook for the rest of the day. There have been more than a couple nights recently where I’ve curled up in the corner of my couch, not even motivated enough to turn a light on while I struggle to take in everything that’s happened just in the past 24 hours before I go to bed. I feel the profound sense of exhausted numbness that gets harder and harder to shake. At this point, I am drained in nearly every conceivable way.

It’s painful to know that my region is both unprepared and ill-equipped to handle an outbreak. Every day going in to work, I am fully aware of the danger that this threat poses not so much to me as a young, healthy 25-year-old, but to the residents who I am trusted to care for. While I am all but guaranteed to make a full recovery if I get this sickness, that may not be the case for many of my residents. The burden is heavy, and the road ahead appears long. All I can do is attempt to hold my head high for my residents who need me more than ever, and stay healthy so they will.