DALLAS - Norma Barrientos hasn’t been able to hug her 79-year old-mother - Mary, who lives with dementia at a Dallas nursing facility - since March.
“And you know, she constantly tells me, ‘Why can’t you come? I need you to come.’ I say, ‘Mama, because there’s a virus out there,’” Barrientos said.
Nursing and living facilities across the country have been hot spots for COVID-19. Barrientos’ mother doesn’t have the virus.
“And she’s tested negative on every test,” she said.
But, she’s not allowed in to see her because of a state order.
“And right now, we’re getting nothing, you know, just video chats and phone calls,” she explained. “It’s not the same, you know. You can’t hold your mother to tell her everything is OK.”
“It’s hundreds of people just from this area,” Texas State Representative Scott Sanford said.
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Sanford said families across the region have shared similar stories, or ones that are even worse.
“It’s not natural for someone to die due to an isolation that’s been imposed upon them that they don’t understand. That’s what need to remedy,” he added.
He led a group of 55 lawmakers in writing a letter to the Texas Health and Human Services commission this week to ask for them to allow limited family members to visit nursing facilities, as long as they follow strict protocols and provide a negative COVID-19 test result.
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He hopes to pass legislation once the next session begins.
Of the 604 people who have died from the coronavirus in Dallas County, about a third have been associated with long-term care facilities.
That’s why some have their concerns.
“But we need to keep in mind that today we have protocols in place for people who don’t live in the facilities to come into the facilities, and they go back out and interact with the community every day,” Sanford said.
And he thinks it can be done.
“People are going in and out of these facilities, staff members are, and we should be able to afford that flexibility to family members, maybe even slightly more stringent,” Sanford added.
Barrientos said her mother used to never remember to call her on the phone, but now, she’s so lonely that she calls all the time.
“She tells the nurse, you know, you need to call my daughter, bring my daughter, I need my daughter, because she knows I’m always there for her,” she said.
She hopes that if a change is made to allow family members inside these facilities, that it can be done safely.
“It would mean the world to her more than anything,” she said. “We don’t know how much longer we’ll have her.”
FOX 4 reached out to the health and services commission for comment, but have not yet gotten a response.
RELATED: Interactive map of Texas COVID-19 cases
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July 26, 2020 at 06:39AM
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State lawmakers, families hoping Texas eases restrictions to allow limited visitation at nursing homes - FOX 4 Dallas
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