Christine Sanders”™ road to becoming the administrator at United Hebrew of New Rochelle”™s skilled nursing facility was a perfect example of something getting their first step on the proverbial bottom rung of the ladder and moving upward.
“I actually started at United Hebrew as an intern right out of college,” Sanders recalled. “I went to Iona and for part of my graduate degree I needed to do an internship in a nursing home because I’m a licensed nursing home administrator. So, I started at United Hebrew as an intern about eight years ago, and I worked under the president and CEO Rita Mabli for about a good eight months.”
When the internship ended, Sanders was offered a full-time position at United Hebrew and by 2018 had rose through the ranks to vice president of administration. Sanders was promoted again to administrator in March, but this achievement has not been publicly trumpeted until now because, she noted, “during the middle of the pandemic, it wasn’t really the right time to announce an appointment.”
The severity of the pandemic was a job-proving experience that Sanders did not expect but was ready to tackle.
“No one’s planned for a pandemic,” she said. “Who would have thought this time last year we would have been faced with this? Definitely, there was no playbook and no rulebook, but we do prepare every year for at least two types of emergencies, like an earthquake or fire. But that is so different from a pandemic.”
Still, Sanders noted that the pandemic did not sneak up on United Hebrew unexpectedly, noting the facility was tracking the news from China in early January of COVID-19”™s first appearance.
“When we heard about this virus, one of my directors said, ”˜We should really bulk up on supplies because you never know what’s going to happen,” Sanders said. “We placed a large order and we were fortunate enough to never be in that situation where we didn’t have enough PPE, masks, gloves and gowns.”
Not unlike the other nursing homes in New York, United Hebrew was mandated by an executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to admit hospital patients who had COVID-19. But unlike other facilities where the arrival of the hospital patients created a calamity, Sanders ensured that the residents at her nursing home were never in harm”™s way.
“We made a COVID unit in our nursing home ”“ it was a separate area,” she stated. “It had a separate staff. It was almost like a mini-hospital ”“ it was really like a sight to see ”“ and that’s where we took our COVID patients. It was a closed unit with closed doors on either side, and if you worked on that unit you worked there all day. It was a consistent staff assigned to that unit who didn’t walk around to other areas of the building.”
Sanders”™ work not only focused within her facility, but in the network of relationships with vendors and suppliers whose work was disrupted by the government edicts related to the pandemic. She praised the vendors for “trying to best help every nursing home, although some of them they were only allotting you a certain amount to be fair, so everyone was able to have supplies.” United Hebrew did its”™ part to help other nursing homes by providing masks to those who fell short of that commodity.
“You hear horror stories about not having enough supplies, but we were grateful we had great vendors who worked with us,” she added. “A lot of the supplies we ordered online through eBay and Amazon, but at one point the price of these masks was through the roof ”“ we were paying four times the regular price. But the vendors were always willing to work with us. I think they felt bad that they couldn’t do enough for us, but they were also overwhelmed.”
Running parallel to Sanders”™ administrative duties was trying to mitigate the emotional stress of the families of the facility”™s residents, who were not able to make in-person visits. She quickly coordinated an effort that sought to offer the best solutions for the new difficult environment.
“We created what we call ”˜adopt a resident,”™” she said. “And it was about 20 different staff members here who all adopted about 10 residents each, and once a week they would call that family member directly and give them an update on what’s happening in the facility with COVID and how their loved one was doing. That didn’t take the place if a family member called for an update ”“ we’d be happy to speak with them. But we wanted to be a little proactive and reaching out to families directly to give them the scoop on what was happening in the building with COVID.
“For families who couldn’t come in to see their loved ones, we set up virtual visits with FaceTime visits and Zoom,” she continued. “The family member would pre-book an appointment in advance, and they would be able to FaceTime with their loved one. And probably about two months ago, we instituted a window visit, so the families come to the first floor in our rehab suite and the resident was brought down by a member of the staff and they’re able to visit with their loved one through a window ”“ we had a speaker there and it’s really nice because you can see your family member up close. And being able hear them was an even bigger bonus because so many residents are hard of hearing.”
As of this writing, family visitation isn’t allowed for Sanders”™ facility, although the state has allowed that to resume for certain nursing homes after a 28-day period without a staff member or resident testing positive for the virus.
“We’re looking to reopen around the first week in August, I think August 7,” Sanders said. “Reopening for us would mean scheduled visits, and we’re working on our plan. Now we actually have to submit that plan to the Department of Health. But we definitely are cautiously optimistic about reopening.”
