Nancy Moreno helped her 77-year-old father out of the car this spring and walked with him to the emergency department at Rochester General Hospital.
Angel Moreno Castro had fallen in his Rochester apartment hours before, and Moreno was worried because his face was swollen and he takes three blood pressure medications. He is also experiencing signs of cognitive impairment.
But when the pair reached the door, Moreno was told she couldn’t accompany her father inside, due to crowd restrictions brought on by the spread of coronavirus. He doesn’t speak English well, and Moreno typically handles conversations with his doctors.
“I had to leave him with the security guard, alone and scared,” she said. “For a lady who’s (in labor,) they’re letting the husband come in. How is that more important than leaving my dad alone without any information?”
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Moreno is one of thousands of people across the U.S. who are navigating the coronavirus crisis on top of daily care for elderly loved ones, many of whom have serious medical or cognitive issues. Social distancing restrictions have shut down support groups and informational events, and many in-person doctor’s appointments are not taking place.
And every time a caregiver enters their loved ones’ room with groceries or medicine, they fear bringing a highly infectious virus — one that is most deadly to sick or older individuals — with them.
The crisis is also depriving patients of in-person community when they need it most, said Laura DiMarco, of Princeton, New Jersey, a mom working in the entertainment marketing industry.
DiMarco and two friends — one a nurse on Long Island, the other based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates — worked together on an idea to help. They started raising money to distribute iPads to New York City-area hospitals and other facilities to enable patients to connect virtually with their loved ones.
Within two days of the launch of their website and GoFundMe in early April, they had shattered their initial goal of $10,000. In nearly three months, they raised $35,000 and purchased 360 iPads.
DiMarco rallied her immediate family and a few willing friends around the effort. They’ve also collected more than 200 donated iPads from individuals and schools.
Donated iPads help solve the challenge of funding, but they also raise questions of safety. The group asks that donated iPads be sanitized and put through a factory reset before donation; they offer an iPad donation checklist on the website.
The group confirms that all iPads are clean, operational and able to connect to Wi-Fi before being distributed to hospitals and nursing homes.
Another initial pitfall was building partnerships. It was difficult to identify who could greenlight and accept the donations at hospitals. The group, as a grassroots startup, had never interacted with them before, DiMarco said. That delayed the initial donation process. Now, the group starts by reaching out to hospital social workers and chief nursing officers.
“That was the biggest kink that we were able to work out,” she said.
Donations have gone to the greater New York City area and beyond. The group also donated iPads to a behavioral health center and a pediatric hospital, to get them into the hands of families and parents so they can connect with their loved ones and also medical staff during appointments or visits.
The coronavirus outbreak has lessened considerably in New York, but visitation is still not allowed in many hospitals or medical centers, so there’s still a need for mobile devices and virtual connection, DiMarco said in June.
The project, called Jeannie’s Fund in memory of DiMarco’s mother Jeannie Tomaselli, who was a visiting nurse and died four years ago, has drawn interest from people around the state, and was even featured on LIVE with Kelly and Ryan.
As the use of telemedicine grows, such grassroots efforts could help with the last link — getting technology in the hands of those who might be well served through virtual connections, especially in under-served communities. That’s especially relevant in Rochester, with an overall poverty rate of 33 percent and where black, Hispanic, multiracial, American Indian and Asian people were all much poorer on average than white people in the city.
Efforts like Jeannie’s Fund, while easing isolation for COVID-19 patients, could also help expand the use of telemedicine — a promising new path in health care that also needs to overcome shortcomings, especially in serving communities of color and rural areas.
Source: Times Telegram