On March 24th 2020 I went to visit my dad at the hospital. He was there for Cellulitis in his leg. He was recovering well they said. Ready to go home they said. The very next day they changed the visitor policy, and two weeks later he was dead.

I am not sure what happened between that time, but the only cluster on Maui occurred at the hospital on that floor at that time.  The cluster expanded to 36 to include 6 people on my dads senior ward hospital wing.

2 days after my visit I got a call from a rehab facility. They were going to help my dad walk again, they asked if I would bring some clothes as soon as I could. I was there the next day, but my dad wasn’t . I asked what happened. They said he had a fever.

The next few days were a nightmare of increasingly depressing phone calls. He was confused. Disoriented. He told me he woke up and thought he was in California. I asked the nurse why I couldn’t visit. Why I couldn’t get tested. She said the test results would take 3 days.

I grew frantic. I couldn’t get anyone to call me back. My dad called and told me he couldn’t breath. I asked to get a nurse on the phone. They propped him up. I guess 2 days later he was gone.

They told me he would have gone anyhow,in 2 weeks,COPD. But he didn’t usually have any trouble breathing, wasn’t even on oxygen. They say they tested him within the first days of check in, but that is when the tests are least accurate. 1 in 5 is a false negative.

In addition to breathing trouble he couldn’t move his legs to stand up, refused to eat and seemed confused. These are all symptoms that display in elderly Covid victims. It took 3 days to determine cause of death, Pneumonia.

It was awful being kept away from someone I love for 2 weeks, to never see again. It was awful and I”ll never be the same. I am told that at our hospital they took away the PPE they usually have in order to stock up for when the “emergency” came. The nurses wanted to bring their own masks and the headquarters stopped them, because it would scare the visitors. It wasn’t until April 5th that they implemented masks. The nurses of the hospital have purchased a full page ad in the local paper complaining.

Someone dropped the ball here. I couldn’t get my at home nurses because they were sick. I had to let the hospital take care of him and instead they got him sicker. He was 88 years old. ‘ pretty good but if you knew my dad, you know he had a few years left.

The nurses were great. The corporation sucks. Because this is what happens when you have a for-profit hospital. This is what happens when you cut corners. And this is what happens when you have blanket policies that don’t take in account the sacrifice you are asking people to make.  There is no reason we cant have rapid , reliable testing by now. And if a reliable tests becomes available; seniors should be able to visit their adult children.