Banned From Nursing Homes, Families See Shocking Decline In Their Loved Ones
Nursing homes banned all visitors and nonessential workers from their facilities in mid-March to stop the spread of COVID-19. Advocates and families want that ban to end.
It wasn't candlelight and soft music that made the 40th anniversary of Luann and Jeff Thibodeau so memorable. It was gazing at each other through the window of Jeff's nursing home in Texas and eating carryout from the Olive Garden. Just the two of them. And a nursing assistant.
"She fed him, and I ate mine, and that was it," Luann Thibodeau says. "So that was our 40th wedding anniversary."
The Thibodeaus have not been in the same room since mid-March. That's when visitors were from nursing homes to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But family members say that talking via FaceTime and holding up signs at windows
