Transcript of “Rights Here, Rights Now –

Episode 21: COVID in Institutions!”

Produced by the disAbility Law Center of Virginia.                                                            

[NARRATOR]: The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. Instead, all information, content and materials available are for general informational purposes only.

[Intro Music: Light rhythmic percussion beats, finger snaps & hand claps]

[VIRGINAI]: Welcome to Rights Here, Rights Now! The podcast about disability, advocacy, and activism.

I'm your Advocate host, Virginia Pharis.

[REN]: And I'm your Advocate host Ren Faszewski.

[VIRGINIA]: Every two weeks we've taken to relevant issues, current events, and avenues for self-advocacy.

[REN]: Because someone has to.

[VIRGINIA]: And it might as well be us!

[REN]: This podcast is produced by the Disability Law Center of Virginia, the Commonwealth’s protection and advocacy agency for disability rights.

***Find out more at www.dLCV.org***

[Enter, Virginia Pharis.]

[VIRGINIA]: Okay, Ren. We have a, well, I’m not going to say a “fun” one for you today, but an important one.

[REN]: [Agreeing]: It is an important one. And it’s kind of a double feature, too, in terms of…having two guests!

[VIRGINIA]: Yes! We have the lovely Becca Herbig & Nicole Durose from dLCV’s Institutions Team (yay!). In to talk about COVID-19, and, um…institutions. So, State Psychiatric hospitals and jails and just other congregate care environments for where we’re really seeing a lot of issues with COVID-19.

[REN]: Yeah. It’s sort of complicated too, in terms of what people are responding. I’m really looking forward to…getting clarification. But before we jump in, let’s check out disability in the news.

[NARRATOR]: Disability service providers across the country are closing programs due to the coronavirus pandemic and some may not reopen. In a survey of 191 organizations serving people with disabilities 77% said they have shut down or discontinued programs due to COVID and 16% indicated that they are not going to reopen. Most of these closures are day programs and employment services. Some providers have had to close due to increased costs related with personal protective equipment, COVID-19 testing, cleaning supplies and staff, and additional training.

Many organizations have gotten some financial support through state and federal assistance but that assistance is not able to be on-going. This greatly affects people with disabilities who are not able to go out into the community or their places of work, which can lead to decreased emotional and physical health. Find out more at disability scoop.com

[REN]: All right! Welcome again to Becca and Nicole- first timers on Rights Here! Rights Now! - Thank you all for joining us today!

[Enter, Nicole Durose]

[NICOLE]: Thank you for having us.

[Enter, Becca Herbig]

[BECCA]: Good morning.

[REN]: We’re talking about some very important stuff today, and, let’s go ahead and just dive right in, because I know it’s a pretty…[pause] a pretty juicy topic, and, a lot of people want to be in the know, so…can we talk about state psychiatric hospitals and the COVID-19 pandemic? Specifically, how they are being reported? Are they, these facilities, even required to report? On the COVID cases?

[BECCA]: Good question! Yes, state psychiatric hospitals are required to report any presumptive positive, or, laboratory confirmed diagnosis for residents of COVID through what is called the CHRIS system. This is because there was actually already a regulation in place before the pandemic, which required state hospitals to report- quote on quote- “any serious injury or illness,” to the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services within 24 hours (of the diagnosis). In a March 16th memorandum from this month, the department explicitly defined COVID-19 as a reportable illness in the CHRIS system.

[VIRGINIA]: Is the CHRIS system something that the public has access to?

[BECCA]: No, the public does not have access to the CHRIS system. dLCV has been able to work out an information sharing program with the department so that we do get some of this (information), and we’re able to investigate some of these things. But, one thing that the Department of Behavioral Health Services has done is created a COVID-specific website on their page. And so—about 2 or 3 times a week, they will actually create a chart and update, for the public, the number of cases currently in each of the state hospitals.

[REN]: Obviously, you know, we’ve been talking about safety precautions during the pandemic and how to keep people safe. I imagine that in these institutions that is even more difficult. How are the state hospitals…[pause]…What are the state hospitals doing to keep the inmates safe from COVID?

[BECCA]: So, each of the psychiatric state hospitals has developed their own COVID response plan, to make sure that residents and staff are as safe as possible. dLCV has reviewed these plans to make sure they are consistent with best practices. And, (we’ve) spoken with administration if they’ve found any concerns. As you may or may not know, residents in the state hospitals often attend group meetings or classes, throughout the day, to keep them occupied, and, help them be prepared for re-entry into the community.

Some of the hospitals have responded by changing the typical class schedule, or class sizes, to ensure that residents can maintain as much social distancing as possible, while also permitting a cleaning crew to come through in between meetings to disinfect. Other hospitals, however, have almost entirely gotten rid of activities that are off the unit. We are concerned when there’s no access to programming and activities. These things are key to each resident’s recovery, to make sure that they are engaged in their programing (with) in their recovery. And that they are prepared for their discharge back to the community.

[VIRGINIA]: So, with all that modification to the way that state facilities are doing groups, are there…are there any facilities that you guys have seen struggle with that? Struggle with…maintaining groups in the time of COVID?

[Enter, Nicole Durose.]

[NICOLE]: Yeah. So Southeastern Virginia Trade Center is one that reports of something back on that programming is not happening to the degree that maybe it should be inside the homes. The SVTC does report that they are doing programs different, but normally, residents go to a main building where daily support is held & they do activities in that building. With, you know, COVID going on, they have the Day Support Staff basically dispatched to the homes and providing the day support activities within the homes.

The other dilemma with this as well, is that this also limits residents, you know, that are already not going to the community and not going anywhere else, essentially just staying in the homes all day, and that’s what they’re doing (the only thing). So, you know there are some concerns about the variety of activities, um, you know, getting residents still out in the communities in safe ways, but making sure that they’re still integrated into communities, as they should be, at a training center.

[REN]: You know obviously there’s a lot of changes going on and we’re really trying to…keep up with how fast that’s happening & how these facilities are responding. What is dLCV doing to monitor these institutions at this time while keeping everybody safe?

[BECCA]: So, in March of this year, we made a decision that it was safer for both our clients and our staff to start to do monitoring remotely. Until it was safe to come back. About a month ago we were actually able to safely get back to doing in person monitoring visits at some of the facilities. We are very closely monitoring the outbreaks that are happening in the facilities, when they can make a determination about whether it’s safe to monitor the person, on a case-by-case basis.

We have challenged the state hospitals especially though to create unique ways for us to interact with residents. And we’ve had our best success in developing these creative work arounds if we do it on a facility-by-facility basis as the technologies for the staff at each (of the) facilities are different.

[VIRGINIA]: Are these facilities…you know, you mentioned that you were monitoring outbreaks remotely. Are there any facilities, at the time of recording, who are experiencing an outbreak?

[BECCA]: So, we are aware of two facilities that currently have outbreaks. Because we had planned to recently go to an in-person monitoring visit at Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute. And- we’ve been closely monitoring. They had an outbreak earlier this year, and, they then had 50 days without any positive cases, which was really a great accomplishment & we were happy to see that. Then unfortunately, right before we went to visit, they (& we) were advised by the administration that they had another outbreak. So, they’ve created both a Quarantine Unit and an Isolation Unit. And, they are, we’re trying to monitor that outbreak currently remotely.

In addition, Southern Virginia Mental Health Institute, had only reported cases amongst staff, and last week we learned of cases among residents. And so, Southern Virginia Mental Health Institute, we won’t be doing an in person visit soon, but we are going to be trying to monitor remotely as much as possible. Thankfully we’ve had really great relationships with the administration in both of these facilities, and they keep us updated regularly.

[VIRGINIA]: Yeah, I would add…not to break the 4th wall at all, but as the advocate currently covering Piedmont Geriatric Hospital, we have also been monitoring the outbreak there. And I think at this point it’s been going on for what feels like months, and even though it’s only been a couple of weeks, it’s not the first one that comes to mind. Although, at the time of recording, and hopefully, for well-after the time of recording, Piedmont is the only facility that we have seen casualties.

[REN]: Obviously, state psychiatric facilities are some of the major facilities that dLCV monitors. Besides the state hospitals, are there any other facilities that dLCV is monitoring, you know, during this pandemic, to track how they’re reacting to COVID-19?

[NICOLE]: Yeah! We are looking at every facility, and we’re starting to look a little bit more, I think, at jails. With prisons, the DOC has been, I think, pretty transparent…as far as either data on their website, of the positive cases recorded for um, staff and inmates, and the testing that have happened, and any inmates that have passed away from Coronavirus. Jails, however, don’t have that same kind of uniformity, so it’s very difficult…to know what is happening in jails. Unless we have, you know, a family member or somebody, maybe an attorney, somebody who has connections on the inside of jails, that’s really the only way we’re getting any transparency out of jails.

Any kind of transparency, (really) or any understanding of what is going on in jails. So, recently, we went to a jail, and, you know, learned that the jails are using-and this is from the inmates- that they’re utilizing the inmates to clean out the pods or units that were…that had another inmate out there- testing positive. And they’re not really providing the inmates with appropriate PPD. They might give them, you know, some gloves and a flimsy mask, but they are not also informing inmates of what they’re doing before they’re going in there.

Or, you know, what’s going on, why they’re going in, so they’re not getting that informed consent and it’s not really a question for the inmates of, you know, “Do you want to go clean a cell? Or a pod?” So, inmates have been having some concerns about that. You know, like, why aren’t they using the external cleaning companies ahead of time to come in and clean the that somebody tested positive off of?

[VIRGINIA]: Do we know if that is something that is happening, um, across the jails, as a system? Or is that something specific to the facility that you guys visited?

[NICOLE]: Right now it’s limited to the facility that we visited. But, you know, again, with jails- Jails have no overarching department or, you know accountability in Virginia like prisons do. Department of Corrections oversees the whole [entire] system. So it’s- there’s just a little more accountability and transparency with that. There’s not only [just] one person to kind of…one entity to go to (in order) to question. Jails are all very individual, so you don’t have that one agency to go to to ask questions.

It really is…having to go to each jail, or, you know, figure out what’s going on. And unless inmates, or family members of inmates like call or…let us know what’s happening, we really don’t know. We can’t be at every single jail interviewing and making observations. So, it’s very difficult to figure out what is really going on in jails and to have a clear understanding of that.

[REN]: Is there anything our listeners can do to support folks in facilities at this time?

[BECCA]: We have a hotline where people can call us on M/W/F, to learn more information and make a complaint to us. And we’re really relying on you all to assist us, with our remote monitoring. And you can do that, you know, because if you are aware of any concerns, anything going on, any type of residential location, or even a work location, or anywhere else, we’ve got a number of advocates and attorneys here at dLCV that would love to help you out. And so, we rely on you all to assist us with our work to keep people with disabilities in Virginia safe.

[VIRGINIA]: Thank you guys again, so much, for coming in and talking to us about COVID in the institutions. We hope to have you guys back in again soon to talk about…I was going to say something a little bit happier, but it is…institutions. So, we, in that case, just hope to have you guys back sometime to talk about something.

[BECCA]: Thank you for having us! Take care everybody!

[Pause.]

And now, a dLCV Highlight:

Jasmine is a young lady with neurological disabilities and recently finished high school. She is a client of the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS). Due to the pandemic, her “Job Development” services came to a halt, because she could not meet in-person with her “Job Coach”. She and her Mom contacted dLCV to see what could be done. Due to dLCV’s advocacy at a meeting with Jasmine and her Mom and DARS staff, Jasmine’s services with her “Job Coach were put back in place to be done virtually. It’s worth noting, that because her Job Coaching services continued, dLCV recently learned Jasmine recently got a full-time job! She is so excited about her job and dLCV’s advocacy on her behalf to make this happen.

[Renter, Virginia Pharis.]

[VIRGINIA]: So, thank you again, Becca and Nicole, for taking the time to talk to us, and brief us on, just, the critical issue of what we can do for ourselves, our loved ones, anyone who might be having to face this COVID-19 pandemic while in an institution, which is a really scary place to be.

[Reenter, Ren Faszewski]

[REN]: Yeah. I mean, certainly we do a lot of work in institutions, you know, year round, that’s part of our bread and butter, really. But, obviously right now during the pandemic, it is really crucial and any help we can get from listeners, you know, letting us know about things they’ve encountered, will be really, really helpful.

[VIRGINIA]: Thank you all again for listening to this episode of Rights Here! Rights Now! Brought to you by the disAbility Law Center of Virginia. We are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please don’t forget to subscribe & leave us a review & share it with your friends, and your colleagues and-

[REN]: Everyone!

[VIRGINIA]: Sure! Share it with everybody!

[REN]: If you need assistance, or want more information [on dLCV and what we do], you can also follow us on social media- we have a Twitter: @disabilitylawva & we also have a Facebook at disAbility Law Center of Virginia. Follow us and share us with your friends!

[VIRGINIA]: Until next time, I’m Virginia Pharis.

[REN]: And I’m Ren Faszewski. And this has been Rights Here!

[VIRGINIA]: Rights Now! [Music]

***End of Transcription***