We would like to thank you for your continued support during this difficult time. Through the coordinated efforts of many people the residents and staff at Dow Rummel continue to be free from COVID-19.
While I know many of you feel we have created a pretty safe environment within our walls at Dow Rummel, we are asking ALL residents to wear masks when they come out of their apartment/room here at Dow Rummel. The number of positive cases in Minnehaha County has been increasing and with a number of larger events like the Sioux Empire Fair, State Fair, Sturgis Rally, etc. we will likely see the number of cases continue to increase over the rest of the summer. We are actually very close to being considered a “hot spot” in Minnehaha County based on information we received from the Dept of Health today. With the need to have a few vendors come in to take care of maintaining our buildings and doing repair work that we have been holding off on, our exposure within our campus has increased a bit. This exposure rate will probably continue to rise when children are back in school this fall. We will be working with staff on the importance of being extra diligent with watching for signs and symptoms of the virus when school starts up. Again, this could also increase our exposure rate within Dow Rummel so having residents wear a mask when not in their apartment/room or when staff are with them becomes even more important.
We continue to work on ways to bring back amenities for the residents here while following the guidelines from the Department of Health for reopening. Starting Monday, August 10th Frist National Bank will be here each Monday from 8:30 to 11:00. Mid-September they will look at adding some additional time if needed.
We are now allowing residents to be picked up by a family member to take them to a medical appointment or come to Dow Rummel and be an escort with our transportation to a medical appointment like family members used to do, as long the family member and resident wear a mask at all times. We just ask that if you are providing the transportation you don’t make any stops along the way except for maybe picking up takeout food at a drive through window or picking up medications at a drive through window if needed.
Based on feedback from family members and staff we are adjusting our outdoor family visits as follows: Wednesdays from 1:15 to 4:45, Thursdays from 1:15 to 4:45 and Saturdays from 10:15 to 4:45. We are also working on ways for us to safety offer indoor family visits and will let you know when we have that in place.
We met with the independent living residents this week to get their views on additional things they would be like to see us do and are surveying the residents for their comfort levels with doing these things. Based on the feedback we receive for the surveys; we will look at ways to implement some of these things for the independent living residents if the majority of them are comfortable with them and if the number of cases in Minnehaha County goes down.
We will continue to evaluate our COVID status and will look at implementing additional changes if we stay COVID free and we see a decline in the number of cases in Minnehaha County. We will keep you informed as we carefully work our way through our reopening plans. Thanks for ALL your patience and understanding as we work to find ways to keep you connected with your loved ones while staying focused on everyone’s health and safety.
Stay SAFE! Stay WELL!