Man spent five hours with his ailing mother and kissed her goodbye but nursing home staff only told him she had tested positive for COVID-19 after her death
- Samuel Roy Quinn spent five hours with his mother, Peggy Smith, 87, on Friday
- It wasn’t until Quinn was leaving nursing home that staff informed him that his mom was one of 83 residents and employees who tested positive for COVID-19
- On Saturday morning, Smith died at The Resort at Texas City nursing facility
A Texas man said he spent five hours with his elderly mother at a nursing home before staff told him that she had tested positive for COVID-19.
Samuel Roy Quinn was able to kiss his mother, Peggy Smith, 87, goodbye during his visit to The Resort at Texas City nursing home on Friday.
He told The New York Times that it wasn’t until he was getting ready to leave the center that staffer told him that his mother was one of 83 residents and employees who had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Smith, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, died on Saturday morning.
Samuel Roy Quinn said he spent five hours with his elderly mother, Peggy Smith (pictured together), 87, at The Resort at Texas City facility before staff told him that she tested positive for COVID-19
He said that it wasn’t until he was getting ready to leave the center that staffer told him that his mother was one of 83 residents and employees who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Smith, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, died on Saturday morning
‘We weren’t able to see her in final days, but she gets it anyway,’ Quinn said of his mother getting the coronavirus.
Quinn told the Times that staffers hadn’t warned him that his mother may have had the virus despite her labored breathing, which is one of the more severe symptoms.
‘They let me go in there without telling me,’ he said.
There have been multiple outbreaks in Texas nursing homes, including one at the Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center where 75 out of 84 patients became infected with the disease.
One of the San Antonio patients has died.
According to local reports, the Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is now being investigated by officials from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
Smith was a resident at The Resort at Texas City (pictured) when she died
A total of 89 residents and employees at the Denton State Supported Living Center in Denton, Texas, have also tested positive for the virus.
In Texas, there are more than 6,800 confirmed cases with more than 120 deaths.
The coronavirus pandemic has affected nursing homes, where some of the most vulnerable people reside, across the US.
It began in Washington state where the virus killed at least 35 people at the Life Care Center of Kirkland.
The virus infected two-thirds of the facility’s residents and dozens of staff members.
In a bid to stop the rapid spread of the virus at nursing homes, family members have been kept away and unable to see their loved ones.
Some family members have even been seen sitting outside the nursing home windows of their relatives while speaking to them on the phone.
In the United States, there are more than 337,000 confirmed cases with more than 9,600 deaths.