Caught in limbo: Relatives speak out at nursing home, the heart of coronvirus outbreak

Family members with loved ones at the Kirkland nursing home at the epicenter of Washington’s coronavirus outbreak are demanding answers.

Kevin Connolly is worried about his father in law Jerry who has been in quarantine at Life Care. For days he’s been calling to get his father in law tested, but was told he had to have symptoms for that to happen.

“We want to know when our loved ones will be tested. We don’t want general information about the group as a whole will be tested. We want specific information as it pertains to our loved ones.”

As far as he knows, Connolly says his father in law does NOT show signs of infection. But he worries he might fall ill the longer he stays.

Pat Herrick received a call this morning with bad news. Her mother Elaine had passed away.

“As far as we knew she wasn’t sick; so I was surprised.”

Herrick was even more surprised when several hours later a different staff member called to say her mother was fine and without symptoms.

Herrick says she’s not angry, but feels compassion for the people there. She says it shows the nurse who called her earlier was so swamped with patients she didn’t have time to update the chart.

“This is bigger now than the virus. This is, how do we contain this, how do we deal people that are ill, also utilizing our resources that we have worldwide.”

Congress recently passed an $8 billion package to help states fight the spread of the virus.