While bars and restaurants have been welcoming back guests for months now, visiting hours at nursing facilities have only recently resumed their pre-pandemic hours and guest privileges. It’s a major milestone for patients and those who long to see them.
Evangeline Lopez moves her sister, Isabel Partida, 88, to the dining room at Laguna Honda Hospital on Monday. Lopez, who used to see her sister weekly, was unable to come in-person for many months when visiting hours were revoked during the pandemic.
“When I came back, she started singing the old Spanish gospel songs that we used to sing in church,” said Lopez about her sister. “That’s how she reacts with joy. So she’s been very joyful ever since they’ve allowed us to come back.”San Francisco took an extremely cautious approach with the pandemic and in particular for the most vulnerable populations, such as seniors and people hospitalized with chronic illness.
In March 2021, indoor visits began slowly resuming at Laguna Honda, first within large airy spaces such as the hospital’s chapel. The delta and omicron surges, however, threw another curveball, causing visiting hours to contract again last winter in response to staff shortages and general risks of catching the highly transmissible omicron variant.
“Going out to see the world is a different story than being cooped in the four walls in the hospital,” said Yee, who has been at Laguna Honda since 2016, the same year she had a stroke. “When you go out and see the world, sun shining, people shopping, it’s much more fun that way.” Prior to the pandemic, Partida, 88, would see her sister every week. The two would eat lunch together, read from the Bible, play music, laugh and just be together. But that all came to a screeching halt in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic caused hospitals and senior living facilities to put visits on pause.
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