The long-term nursing care unit of Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, which also has a location in Santa Clarita, has “beat the COVID-19 odds” according to hospital officials, with few cases contracted and zero deaths since the pandemic began last year.

Amidst the spread of COVID-19, Angie Lim Torres, Nurse Director of post-acute services at Providence Holy Cross, reportedly began taking steps to protect her 48 highly-vulnerable patients in the Sub-Acute Center, in which many of them are semi-comatose and/or on life-saving ventilators.

“I watched the news and saw all those deaths from COVID-19, and I just didn’t want that to happen here,” Torres said. 

With a doctorate in nursing, Torres studied the virus and reviewed guidelines from the state, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health regarding the care of long-term care patients.

Torres adopted “proactive protocols” to ensure maximum safety for not only her patients, but also the 110 staff members at the Providence Sub-Acute Center. 

Some of those precautions included the suspension of communal dining and activities, and the replacement of in-person visitations with daily 15- to 20-minute FaceTime sessions with family members. Hospital auxiliary services, such as food services workers, no longer entered the stand-alone unit, and would leave food trays outside the main entrance.

As the virus swept through nursing homes across the country, just six patients at the Providence Sub-Acute Center contracted COVID-19, each one fully recovering and none of them dying.

Employees at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center continue to be tested frequently for the virus, officials say.

For more information on Providence, visit their website here.

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