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Another Pandemic Casualty: Family Visits At Locked Psychiatric Facilities
Annie Felix visits her son, Andrew, from the other side of his window. (Robert Garrova/LAist)
As hard it is for people who haven’t been able to visit family members in nursing homes during the pandemic, it’s been particularly tough for those with relatives in locked psychiatric facilities that have also cut off visitation.
Annie Felix’s son Andrew is in a facility in Long Beach, where she used to visit him three times a week for two hours at a time.
Then COVID-19 hit, forcing the freezing of visiting hours. Now she trudges through bushes to stand outside Andrew’s parking-lot facing window to try to talk to him.
As of early July, there had been five coronavirus outbreaks at Long Beach psychiatric centers, with a total of 19 cases and one death at Andrew’s facility, according to the city.
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