-How you doing, ladies? -Good.
How are you? -How are you?
-Let's start filling up in the conference room.
My name is Ronny Rosales.
I'm the director of nursing at ALC Home Health.
We are one of the only ones, not to say the only,
home-health agency,
at least that I know about, that are actually taking on
COVID-19-positive patients or suspected patients.
I know you all have a very busy schedule
out there, things how they are.
So, I do appreciate your time for coming in.
We are busier than ever.
A lot of hospitals, a lot of providers
that had never reached out to us
before are reaching out to us now
and asking us for help at a time of crisis.
Your goggles should fit perfectly on top of your mask
and should not come in any contact with your mask.
We've had to use some very unconventional strategies
to be able to purchase supplies,
paying ridiculous prices for regular PPE equipment.
And at this time, if we have any jewelry on,
we'll remove all of this jewelry, right?
So, wedding rings -- -As a result of the COVID-19
crisis that we've been faced with,
my partner and I,
my fiancée and I, spoke about it,
and we agreed it was best to isolate from each other.
She has now been with her folks.
I have not seen her in about a week,
and it was best because her parents, being older adults,
in their 70s, their risk was higher of contaminating.
And as a result of my job,
seeing patients and being around people,
not knowing if they're carriers or not,
the risk was just too high.
What I do is, I also like to Lysol the bag.
I've been in the profession for about 13 years now.
Never in my wildest dreams or thoughts
that I would have ever encountered something like this.
So, this is a first. -I'm from Bergamo, Italy,
and I have all my family there, and so far, I've heard
that we've lost 17 members since this all started.
My mother, Vidalina,
she lives with me, and I don't let her go outside.
I don't let her get any mail. She's just home.
Are you feeling okay?
It makes me sad. It makes me nervous.
I'm anxious every day.
I try to protect myself, and we've spoken about it,
because we've sat down and spoke about it.
If anything were to happen to me,
she would be contaminated because of me,
and she understands, and she says,
"Well, we're together,
so we have to live through it together."
-Yeah, we are experiencing the fear that everybody else is,
but that fear is not going
to stop us from doing what we need to do.
So, I'm gonna definitely get on my mask,
just to make sure we don't bring anything into the home.
And this is just in case
we're in the middle of the incubation period.
That's what I explain to the family.
The reason why I'm wearing the mask,
just in case I'm in the middle of the incubation period,
in order to prevent the contamination of their home.
That's the only reason I'll be wearing the mask.
The elderly adults are the most vulnerable that we treat
and the most chronic patients that we treat currently.
We put every single precaution in place.
We're taking every single measure possible
to make sure that we can remain open
and make sure that our staff is safe,
but that we don't stop providing services for patients.
We forget that it's not all about COVID-19.
We do treat a lot of patients that are significantly sick
and suffer from chronic and acute conditions,
such as cancer, patients that are immunosuppressed,
patients that need services that are medically necessary,
in order to pretty much stay alive,
that are scared to let anybody in their house.
But we are the healthcare professionals.
We chose to be in this field to help people.
We chose this career.
We swore an oath that we will be here,
that we will put our patients first.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate your help and your understanding.
I hope you have a wonderful day, sir, okay?
-Yes, same to you.