The Hickman Friends Senior Community of West Chester is a nonprofit senior care facility with about 122 beds. Right now, they have 74 residents after shutting off intake and locking down the facility on March 11, days before the statewide lockdown began.
“Every week, incrementally, we kind of looked at how we could improve our processes,” she said.
By April 1, for example, masks were made mandatory for all staff while in the building. And the result is noteworthy: The Hickman is COVID-19 free.
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“To date, we have no residents with symptoms,” Kelly said. “I feel like it’s luck, quite frankly, and our frontline workers have been doing an awesome job.”
According to the Hickman website, two staff members did test positive for COVID-19 and quarantined at home. There are 75 long-term care facilities in Chester County, and 29 are currently dealing with an outbreak of the virus. There have been 424 COVID-19 cases and 93 deaths in such facilities countywide.
“There go by the grace of God go we,” said Kelly. “I feel for our colleagues at other facilities, but we know that could be us because with some people having no symptoms, it is really hard to screen.”
Kelly said they screen residents twice a day, checking temperatures and symptoms. In addition, she said they recently did antibody tests for all staff. The results show none of the staff currently at work have been exposed to coronavirus.
Medical technician Claudia Menefee was recently named a “Hickman Hero” — the heroes initiative is one of the ways the senior facility keeps staff motivated — by the nonprofit for her work with residents.
“I love my job, I really do,” said Menefee, who lives with her mother who has COPD and other medical conditions that make her vulnerable to COVID-19.
“We had a shut down right away,” she said. “At first, I thought it was the government interrupting our lives, but we soon realized how serious this was.”
Menefee said the entire staff at The Hickman, like many other facilities, work hard to stay healthy.
“I wear my mask, wash my hands and sanitize,” she said. “Most of these things I was already doing, but I really do not want to bring a virus to my job or to my family.”
Menefee, who never knew her grandparents, said for her, working at The Hickman is personal.
“They are like family, like the grandparents I didn’t have,” she said.
She believes many good things are happening in nursing facilities even amid the crisis, and feels that programs like Hickman Heroes is a reminder.
“We should show the success stories amid the bad news of COVID-19,” she said, “just to give people hope. To give them hope.”
Kelly and other staff at Hickman hope that the facility stays COVID-19 free and will continue to work to make it a reality.