FORT SMITH, Ark. — This week the CDC updated COVID-19 safety guidelines for long-term care facilities visitation. This comes after more than 3 million doses of the vaccine have been given at nursing homes across the country.
For months Arkansas families with a loved one living at long-term care facilities had to make a visit on the other side of a window or outside.
“See them in-person, hold their hand, hug them, and interact with them in a different way. We’re so excited about that," said Rachel Bunch, Executive Director of Arkansas Healthcare Association.
According to the update from the CDC, long-term care facilities should allow indoor visitations for all residents regardless of their vaccination status.
There are of course exceptions.
Those visits can’t happen if the county’s COVID-19 positivity rate is more than 10% or less than 70% of residents are fully vaccinated.
“If a facility has had one new case in the past we had to completely shut down all visitation but now the new memo allows that if you have one new case, you can do outbreak testing and if there are no other cases, you can continue with visitations," Bunch said.
Methodist Village in Fort Smith is working on those logistics now and indoor visitation should be allowed in the next week or so.
"Just like in the community we want to do this in the right way. We want to take it step by step and make sure we don’t take one step forward and two steps back," said Bryant Dooley, Methodist Village CEO.
At Village on the Park Rogers, all of the residents have received both doses of the vaccine, and they are past the recommended two-week waiting period.
“We’re allowing two-hour visitation with family members in the room. We could not do that prior. That’s a really big change," said Emily Haley, Executive Director at Village on the Park Rogers.
Visitors are still required to wear a mask and several long-term care facilities have already determined if Governor Asa Hutchinson lifts the mask mandate in the state that requirement will remain.
Bunch says all long-term care facilities in the state have had first and second-dose vaccination clinics.
The updated guidance also emphasized that compassionate care visits for residents who’ve had their health sharply decline should be allowed at all times.