Time for Whitmer to help seniors in living facilities who are isolated, advocate says

FOX 2 - Roberta Hamman praised her 97-year-old mother Helen Collins, who beat the coronavirus.

"She is just amazing and to be alive and survive COVID-19," she said.

Her mother was happily living in West Bloomfield's Notting Hill Nursing Home until COVID-19 hit. Her daughter says Helen, who beat the virus, has been forced to live the last six months in her room, isolated and alone.

"Not just her, all those people are suffering in their final years," Roberta said. "To think they are in prison or just to not to see another human being is cruel."

Hamman has been able to occasionally visit her mother through a glass window. She says the nursing staff has told her elderly residents have become so depressed they've stopped eating. Many want to die than live another day alone.
  
"Patients are extremely depressed, they don't want to get dressed," Hamman said. "They haven't seen another person. She thinks she's being punished. She (feels like) either a little girl being punished or saying she is in prison."

Notting Hill administrators told FOX 2 they were just following Governor Gretchen Whitmer's executive orders which canceled all communal dining - internal and external group activities.

"I understand right now, visitation. It is dangerous for anyone who could bring in Covid, I abide by that, and respect our governor for taking care of this," Hamman said. "I am a big supporter. Number two, since no family is going in and there hasn't been a new case of Covid since June 2nd, that is almost 90 days."

FOX 2 spoke to Bobby Leddy from the governor's office, who said "There are no direct restrictions on social interactions within nursing homes, other than the 10 person gathering limitation."

Roberta Hamman and her 97-year-old mother Helen Collins

How long term care facilities have been handled during the pandemic has been controversial, which is why the governor appointed a nursing home task force that just presented 28 recommendations to improve everything from the quality of life, resident placement, and staffing.

But in the meantime, Hamman says something needs to be done for our elderly population who are suffering and sadly don't have much time left.

"Now that she is getting ready to open gyms and bowling alleys and I know she is worried about schools, okay it is time to worry about the seniors," Hamman said.

Notting Hill responded saying, "... If physically capable, they make every effort to bring residents out of their rooms, and at no time have they trapped or confined a resident to their room if they can safely move around."

 While they are following orders from the governor, they say they "Welcome the day she deems it appropriate to loosen restrictions on social interactions for the well-being of all residents."