SCRANTON, Pa. — The data released Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Department of Health shows that nursing homes in Lackawanna County have had especially high rates of infection and COVID-19 deaths.
We spoke with a man from South Carolina who is feeling even farther away from his mom, who lives in a nursing home in Scranton, and is battling coronavirus.
Mountain View Care and Rehab Center on Stafford Avenue in Scranton has been identified as one of the hardest-hit long-term care facilities in Lackawanna County when it comes to COVID-19.
According to information released by the Department of Health, 109 residents have been infected. That means if the facility was at capacity when the pandemic began, about 60 percent of its residents caught the virus.
We spoke to the son of one of those residents over the phone from his home in South Carolina.
"It's the not being there that hurts the most. And she's situated on an interior window so my family can't even get to her room from the outside," Jeff Betsch said.
Betsch says he and his siblings noticed their mom was coughing a lot back in April, so they asked Mountain View staff to test her for the virus. She was treated holistically with vitamin supplements and has gotten better, but Jeff says she still has a cough and has not been given another coronavirus test.
Mountain View is one of more than a dozen nursing homes statewide that is accepting help from the Pennsylvania National Guard.
"I know that the National Guard was in there cleaning, that much I do know. I also know, from what I understand, they're also in there relieving some of these nurses and CNAs to be able to give them a little bit of a break."
Jeff says he and his siblings are feeling frustrated wishing they were able to move their mom from Mountain View before she became sick, but he says he does feel sympathy for the nurses who are taking care of her.
"I've spoken with many of the nurses, they're busting their butts, and they're doing the best they can. You don't go into medicine to see people get sick and not be able to do anything to help them."
What's not clear is if family members of infected patients can move their loved ones after they've tested negative.
The Department of Health says it does not have any restrictions on moving nursing home residents. We reached out to Mountain View to see what their policy is, and we have not heard back.