TVAMC Allowing In-Person Visitation in CLCs
“It’s exciting for us and for them! Many of our residents keep asking when they can see their families again and now, we can make that happen for them.”
When Jo Brown got the letter in the mail from the Tuscaloosa VA saying that they were now allowing in-person visitations, she was ecstatic. “I started shouting and hollering to my niece” said Brown, “I read her the whole letter! It felt like a delayed Christmas gift I had got in the mail.” Spring 2020 is the last time that Willie and Jo Brown have seen each other in person. Willie Brown is a resident living in Patriot’s Point, a Community Living Center (CLC) at the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center. Mrs. Brown made an appointment for the first available timeslot to re-unite with her husband. April 6 could not come soon enough for them.
The COVID-19 pandemic began shuttering restaurants, businesses, and medical care facilities in West Alabama last Spring. That is when the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center began restricting visitors within its medical center. As VA’s across the country began to see spikes in positive and severe COVID cases among their geriatric populations, VA led the way in enforcing even stricter limitations on access to its most vulnerable patients. While the Tuscaloosa VA CLC did not go un-touched, they were able to quickly gain control of the spread of the virus by limiting access to all residential areas. This unfortunately meant no outside visitors were allowed inside of the doors of the CLCs. Since cutting off in-person visitations on March 8th of 2020, VA staff have worked hard to fill in the voids left by the lack of human interaction for their residents by increasing activities, sprucing up outer courtyards for fresh-air breaks to even purchasing large iPads so that residents could video-chat with family. Still, even with technological advances like Facetime and Zoom, it didn’t equate to the warmth of a face-to-face smile from a loved one.
The smile on Willie Brown’s face was as bright as the sun bearing down on the cement courtyard where he was reunited with his wife, Jo. They quickly hugged and briefly held hands in keeping with the still-stringent guidelines to maintain social-distancing. “I feel rejuvenated. I feel hopeful” Brown said when asked about his thoughts on the reunion. Sylvia Belcher, a Nursing Assistant at the Tuscaloosa added, “It’s exciting for us and for them! Many of our residents keep asking when they can see their families again and now, we can make that happen for them.”
The Tuscaloosa VA is now offering in-person visitation for residents twice daily, 7 days a week. The appointments must be scheduled in advance with the resident’s unit supervisor or social worker.
