GOING INSIDE OAKVIEW TERRACE: PART 2

BY JEREMY WALTNER

When the coronavirus pandemic hit home in March of 2020 — and even in the months leading up to it, as the leadership at Freeman Regional Health Service (FRHS) began preparing for the worst public health crisis in 100 years and what that would mean for the local nursing home — everybody there was all in.

“The staff across Freeman Regional — the lab, the clinic, the hospital — everybody has supported the Oakview Terrace team,” says Amanda Mettler, director of social services. “When the rubber hit the road, everybody’s world changed. Everybody’s processed and everybody worked through the day-to-day, and the way we have done things for 40 years here, changed. And nobody complained. It was, ‘What do we need to do?’ And we did it.”

One of the most visible changes inside the facility is a new family room that enables residents to meet with family members face to face in a safe way. Once a waiting room across from the business office that separates the nursing home wing from the hospital/clinic side, today the space is closed off from the rest of the facility, with its own ventilation system, a glass wall dividing the room in half with entrances on each side, and technology that allows for effective communication.

The work that went into getting that room ready, and the value it has proven to be for residents and their families, is a bright spot in what has been a difficult year.

Less visible, at least to the outside world, is how the pandemic exposed the positive working relationship Oakview Terrace has, not only with its residents — anywhere from 43 to 45 throughout the pandemic — but families of those residents living and watching from afar.

“Hats off to our families,” says Nikki Mehlhaf, director of nursing at Oakview Terrace. “Our families have been truly outstanding; we have been so blessed. Our theme was, ‘We will do whatever we can to protect our staff and our residents through this whole thing.’ That’s the message we gave our families and they joined in. They were grateful for every little thing we could provide for them and we are grateful for their patience. I give them a lot of credit.”

As systems and protocols changed with the evolution of COVID-19 and the public’s understanding of the virus, so did the Oakview Terrace staff need to let families of patients know what was taking place behind closed doors.

“We worked really hard to communicate with our families as things changed — to keep them knowledgeable of the ‘why’s’ behind what we were doing,” Mettler says. “We had staff running out at 4:10 to get letters out so they knew what was changing or knew what was available or happening.

“Our families are a part of our facility,” she says. “It’s not just the residents and the staff.”

The positive working relationship the staff has with its families isn’t new.

“It’s something you build,” Mehlhaf says.

“As a social worker I get to talk to our families a lot, but it’s the care the staff gives the residents that make it so our families trust us,” Mettler says. “And that didn’t start in March of 2020; that started years ago.”

Communication, and that level of trust, was particularly important when Oakview Terrace saw its first positive case of COVID-19 last November, and then several subsequent cases later in the month, all in the dementia care unit. Because of the positive working relationship between the staff and the families, the facility was able to focus on safety.

That’s been true throughout these difficult times.

“We have been able to invest time in taking care of the residents and haven’t had to spend a lot of time mitigating concerns,” Mettler says. “We’ve been able to respond and be proactive in planning because we aren’t sitting there trying to respond to concerns. They’re just not there. Our families work really well with us and we are so grateful.”

As for the relatively minor impact and disruption those cases in November had on the larger facility, Mehlhaf has only one explanation: “God and staff.”

“That’s what I’ve said all along,” she says. “Our staff was incredible; God blessed us.”

“The fact that our first case happened in an area that was more isolated, that helped us,” said Mettler. “But our team came together then and mitigated. We made drastic changes to try to keep it out of the main area of the facility. I give our leadership credit, our nursing team, food and nutrition, environmental services …”

“We never complained,” said Natalie Arens, who came on as activities director just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. “We cried.”

Courtney Unruh, CEO at Freeman Regional Health Services, says she feels blessed to be on the leadership team of this caliber.

“The minute we had our first case in Hutchinson County, we went into lockdown,” she said. “And from then on our incident command team met daily. It was weird, it was out of the box, but we responded to every piece of information that we got.

“Just kudos to these ladies,” she continued. “You can see how hard they worked; they communicate so well together and they communicate so well with their families and they have built that trust and those relationships. You don’t get that everywhere.

“There is something special here in Freeman. Even Dr. (Ken) Kirton (former chief of medical staff) comes back and says, ‘This is a special place.’”

Part 1 of this story was published in the April 8 issue of The Courier.