Additional Indoor Visits Allowed At NJ Long-Term Care Facilities

NEW JERSEY — Gov. Phil Murphy loosened the indoor visitation guidelines on Wednesday for seeing a loved one at a long-term care facility amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"Compassionate care, essential caregiver, outdoor, and end-of-life visitation by appointment should be permitted at our long-term care facilities even when indoor visitation is otherwise restricted," said Murphy during the Wednesday press conference.

Prior to the announcement, visitation was restricted or prohibited at long-term care facilities in New Jersey.

New Jersey Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said the NJ Department of Health "is working to provide a balance in accomodating long term care visitation and doing it in a way to keep residents, staff and visitors safe. We know that COVID-19 remains in our community and we must remain vigilant to ensure the appropriate safeguards are in place for these vulnerable residents."

Compassionate Caregiver

An essential caregiver could be someone who was previously actively engaged with the resident or committed to providing assistance with daily living. These caregivers would include family members, friends, or an outside caregiver.

Persichilli noted there are a wide range of situations affecting residents including when their physical or emotional health is significantly deteriorating, which would warrant a visit by a caregiver.

Some examples that would warrant a compassionate caregiver visit include:

• Allow visits for residents who were living with family before recently being admitted to a long-term care facility. "We know a change in environment and sudden lack of visits from family can be traumatic," said Persichilli.
• Allowing someone to visit a resident whose friend or family member recently passed away
• Permitting a visit with a resident whose health status is sharply declining
• Permitting a visit with a resident who needs encouragement for drinking or eating or is experiencing weight loss or dehydration
• Allowing a visit with a resident who used to talk and interact with others but is now experiencing emotional distress, seldom speaking or crying more frequently when the resident rarely exhibited this in the past

Visitation For Caregivers

Visitation is permitted in a resident's room if they are in a single room. It's also allowed:

• In a shared room, as long as the long-term care facility identifies a location that allows for social distancing and deep cleaning.
• For situations where there is a roommate and the health status of the resident prevents them from leaving the room, the facility should attempt to enable in-room visitation while adhering to COVID-19 infection prevention.

When can a long-term facility fully reopen indoor visitation?

Persichilli said there will be a phased reopening for long-term care facilities and nursing homes in the state which will be based on a number of factors including:

• Facility's outbreak status
• Facility's COVID-19 index scores
• Facility has no new COVID-19 cases detected over the last 2 weeks
• Facility is not conducting outbreak testing
• Facility has sufficient PPE, and cleaning and disinfectant supplies to permit visitation
• Facility has a mechanism to collect confirmed consent from residents and visitors.

These new visitation rules come after the state announced a 96 percent drop in new COVID-19 infections in NJ nursing homes.

"We continue to track outbreaks and cases at long-term care facilities in the state. We have seen a marked decrease in the number of newly reported cases from the fall peak (week of Jan. 3) to the week of Feb. 28," Persichilli said. "Between this period of time, there was a decline of 96.4 percent in the weekly number of newly reported resident cases and a 95.9 percent decline in the weekly number of newly reported resident deaths."

The significant decline in cases and deaths in long-term care facilities is likely due to a combination of factors, including vaccination, a decrease in community transmission, improved infection prevention and control measures, and residual immunity from prior COVID-19 infection in this population, officials said. Read More: https://patch.com/new-jersey/longvalley/96-percent-drop-new-covid-19-infections-nj-nursing-homes

— Additional reporting by Russ Crespolini

Have a news tip? Email alexis.tarrazi@patch.com.

Get Patch breaking news alerts sent right to your phone with our new app. Download here. Don't miss local and statewide announcements. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.