Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #512

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Boy Scouts Create COVID-19 ‘Hug Booth' For Texas Nursing Home
By Ben Hooper
Dec. 14 (UPI) -- A Texas Boy Scout troop is helping residents at a nursing home get a little closer to their visitors with a "hug booth" designed
with COVID-
19 safety in mind.
Heartis Clear Lake, an assistant living facility in Webster that is one of several such homes
to impose strict safety
measures follow- ing a surge of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes, is now allowing residents and their loved ones some limited physical contact
through the booth created by Boy Scout Troop 848.
The booth has a plexiglass window that allows guests to stick their hands through
large, sanitized gloves for hug- ging and other physical touches.
"They build it exactly the way we envisioned it," Becky Hudson,
the lifestyle direc- tor at the
facility, told KTRK-
TV. "They're great, safe and come with gloves."
The booth is simi- lar to devices installed in other nursing homes across the coun- try amid the pan- demic.
Kevin Warren, the
CEO of the Texas Healthcare Association, said contact with loved ones is important to the well-being of seniors in assisted care homes.
"Don't let COVID- 19 be a deterrent for figuring out somehow, some way to engage the family mem- ber in the facility," Warren said.
"Coordinate with the facility leader- ship, make a phone call and find out what are their visitation requirements and what they are allowing them to do."
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine