Patients, staff at nursing homes hit hard by COVID-19 pandemic - here are their stories

Three nursing homes, three people and three stories of how the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting these care facilities hard.

Megan O'Brien's 101-year-old mother, Jean, is at Four Chaplains nursing home in Westland- and she's worried about her mom getting coronavirus.

"I have a picture and it doesn't even look like my mother, because as a result of the quarantine she has lost so much weight," said O'Brien. "As a result if she gets exposed, she won't be one of the success stories."

O'Brien says she was told the nursing home is accepting positive patients because of the Governor's order.

"This will wipe my mom out," she said. "She has lost so much weight, she's despondent because of loss of connection.

"She was born during the Spanish Flu epidemic; we don't want to lose her."

The company that manages Four Chaplains said it is not accepting any more positive patients until they get clarity on the Governor's order.

Janine Cook's mom Maryanne was a resident at MediLodge of Livingston and passed away on April 14 after testing positive with COVID-19, she went to the hospital. A few days later, she was dead.
 
"By the time my mom was at the hospital, my mother was unresponsive she was not breathing," said Cook. "What was more devastating was MediLodge insists they sent letters to family members saying they were bringing COVID-19 patients from the hospital because they had beds available. We did not get those letters."

William Perkins and his wife have come down with COVID-19 like symptoms after she worked at MediLodge's Sterling Heights facility.

"I know what she had to go through every day, coming home, taking her clothes off and showering and everything," said Perkins. "And she ended up still having it, five employees got it too." 

FOX 2 did not hear from MediLodge by press time, but we checked with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to see if they're testing nursing home residents across the state or in hot spots. It says it is testing only people with symptoms.
 
But those without symptoms won't be tested because of limitations in testing supply chains nationwide.