Birmingham senior living facility designs creative visitations for residents & families

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (WBMA) — COVID 19 has hit the nursing home population pretty hard and visitation is still restricted.

However, one Birmingham senior living facility, St. Martins in the Pines has come up with a creative way for families to visit loved ones. They're called "chatterboxes". It's a box made of plexiglass that the resident sits in and family members sit outside of it to communicate.

Wednesday was Tammi Deatherage's third time seeing her mom Gertrude in person since the pandemic hit.

"It's great because I can talk to her by face-time but she can't ever really see me that well," she said. "So it's better if she can see me in person it's very comforting to her and it's good for us to to see her and know that she's ok."

Deatherage says although she can't touch her mom seeing her means a lot.

"We just sit here for a few minutes and look at each other and be comfortable knowing we're together and she's ok," she said.

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Last month St. Martin in the Pines created chatterboxes. They're made of plexiglass and help families safely see their loved ones.

"We knew that we had to have a way other elders could communicate with their families," St. Martin's Life Enrichment director Tina Knowles said.

Knowles says families can make an appointment once a week for a 30 minute visit. She says residents look forward to it.

"Some of our residents when we first started they actually were very tearful because they hadn't seen their family members in a while," she said.

For Deatherage there's nothing that can replace being face to face.

"Just coming down here and seeing her head to toe in person is just so comforting," Deatherage said.

Knowles said they had over 80 appointments in July.

To meet the demand they're adding two more chatterboxes to bring the total to five on campus.