Last week, RADIOIQ aired a story about how home health workers are lacking guidance and protective equipment as COVID-19 spreads.
Since then, the Virginia Department of Health has posted guidelines for home health workers and a spokesman for the agency tells RADIOIQ they will be distributing masks, gloves, and gowns to home care agencies based on need and availability.
In the meantime, some community members are stepping up to help fill the gap.
Dawn Beninghove owns Companion Extraordinaire, a homecare agency in Richmond. Since the outbreak of the virus it’s become difficult for her to find masks for her aides to wear when they go to patients’ homes.
Then, in walked a woman with one fabric mask and the promise of more.
“And I just started crying immediately because literally, I personally had been praying about how we were going to do all of this,” says Beninghove.
That person was Robin Raver. So far Raver and three friends have followed guidelines from a hospital in Indiana and sewn more than 150 double-layered cotton, flannel masks.
While they are not suitable protection in caring for a patient with coronavirus, they can help block droplets between two people who are in close contact. They can be washed and reworn.
“It feels really good to have been able to just say ‘Hey, we can do this!’,” Raver says. “And it also feels really good because their main office is just four blocks from my house…. a sort of neighborhood feel about it.”
When she finishes this project Raver says there’s a nursing facility nearby she’ll ask next.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
