leadingage new york
TOGETHER
This issue of LeadingAge New York Adviser focuses entirely on the response of LeadingAge New York
members, business partners and the association during the first six months of an unprecedented crisis.
Members rose heroically to the challenge of providing care and services despite staff illness and shortages,
lack of resources and the rapidly deployed, often contradictory mandates. LeadingAge New York staff worked
diligently to provide information, resources, guidance, emotional support and anything else members needed
to meet the challenge while suppliers worked feverishly to support efforts to locate and distribute PPE.
The following Op-ed appeared in the Empire Report and many other newspapers across the state. It was part
of a larger campaign LeadingAge New York ran to publicly recognize and celebrate the “Care, Comfort and
Compassion” provide by New York’s not-for-profit providers.
Thank you LeadingAge New York members for doing what you do best-providing for the needs of some of New
York’s most vulnerable residents.
During the COVID-19 Crisis, New York’s
Long-Term Care Providers are Fighting to
Protect the Vulnerable and the Workforce
That Cares for Them By James Clyne
As the COVID-19 virus has engulfed New York, mission-driven not-for-profit long term care providers
(LTC) have been engaged in selfless and heroic work. They are working, under extraordinarily
challenging conditions, to care for residents who are particularly vulnerable to this devastating virus.
They are striving to maintain a high quality-of-life in facilities that are their residents’ homes, without
the ability to carry on normal dining and social routines and without the comfort of family visitation.
They are trying to soothe agitated residents with dementia who do not understand this disruption, need
the freedom to wander and to touch; cannot tolerate wearing masks; and are frightened of those who do.
At the same time, the staff and the residents are grieving for the residents and co-workers they have lost
to this deadly virus.
Each COVID-19 case, and each individual included in the deaths announced daily, represents a
treasured life. These victims were husbands and wives, veterans, our neighbors. They were beloved.
Tragically, their age and underlying health conditions also made them vulnerable to COVID-19.
4 Adviser a publication of LeadingAge New York | Summer 2020
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