Letter to the Families 10.02.20
Dear Family and Friends,
From the onset of this pandemic our number one goal has been to protect our dear residents, at all costs. From the very beginning we were amongst the first facilities in New Jersey to shut our doors to visitors to keep the virus out of Alameda. With all the safety measure and infection control protocol that we have implemented we have been thankful to get to a point to be able to open somewhat to visitation. I have stated since day one that we must continue to be extremely vigilant and careful in everything that we do, as this virus is still very much here, and the battle is far from over.
Another point of emphasis we have made is to always remain in contact with the family members and to keep an open communication with all that is going on in Alameda Center.
In the past few months, we have initiated a process of regular weekly testing of all our residents and staff members. This allows us to identify even those that are completely asymptomatic that are positive for the virus, remove them from the building or isolates and enact the proper infection control protocol as quickly as possible in order to stop the spread of the virus. We have been so successful at this that we have not had a positive test result amongst residents or staff in weeks. The Middlesex County Department of Health declared us “outbreak free”. Unfortunately, in the past few weeks we have seen an alarmingly high uptick in positive cases throughout the state of NJ. Today, three of our staff members received a positive result on their test we took yesterday. All 3 of these staff members are completely asymptomatic and we likely would not have caught this had it not been for our aggressive testing regiment. We have conducted contact tracing on the residents who were treated by these staff members, have already conducted new tests on all of them, and we are monitoring their conditions very closely.
To be as safe as we possibly we can, we have made the tough and very hard decision to once again restrict all forms of visitation for the time being. We can never be too safe. We know how hard and difficult this will be on the residents and on the family members and we will do whatever we can to arrange any other form of communication that is suitable for the resident and the family.
I know that you will not be happy to read this but please know we are only doing what is safe for our dear residents.
David Fischer
Thank you,
