Amerisafe will bring ‘hugging station’ to Redstone Highlands in Murrysville
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Last week, Amerisafe Vice President of Consultations Del Kubeldis was at a “hugging station” event at Redstone Highlands in Greensburg — where the company sets up a plastic doorway barrier through which senior residents and their family members can safely interact — when he saw something that truly touched him.
“The last guy you’d expect to be overcome with emotion was practically bawling the whole time,” Kubeldis said. “He got a chance to finally hug his mom.”
By and large, interaction between vulnerable senior-center residents and the public has been almost entirely restricted to staff since the covid-19 pandemic began. Centers have arranged things like drive-by birthday parades or window visits, but anything resembling true physical interaction isn’t able to safely happen.
Over the summer, staff at Greensburg Care Center built a Plexiglas-and-wood booth to arrange 20-minute visits between residents and family.
Kubeldis hopes the “hugging station,” which Amerisafe will bring to Redstone’s Murrysville location on Thursday, can serve as a way for families to interact even more closely while staying safe.
“I had seen a ‘hugging tent,’ which is a canopy with plastic on all four sides,” Kubeldis said. “And the sides had ‘sleeves,’ so people could hug one another.”
It seemed like an easy enough concept to adapt, he thought.
“We set up two walls: one on the inside that Redstone controls, and one on the outside that Amerisafe controls,” he said.
After an interaction, both sides of the wall take turns replacing the plastic for the next interaction.
“There’s always a new ‘wall’ for each family,” Kubeldis said. “Each family gets a temperature check and we ask the same questions we’ve asked for the past nine months.”
Kubeldis said he’s received nothing but positive feedback.
“Pretty much the unanimous sentiment is that, ‘We’ve been able to call, have window visits and Facetime, but this is the first time I’ve been able to hug my loved one,” he said.
Lisa Dormire, Redstone’s vice president for mission support, agreed.
“It was really beautiful,” she said of last week’s event in Greensburg.
When Redstone was able to briefly do in-person visits a few months ago, visitors were kept a minimum of six feet apart, with no touching permitted.
“They’re still touching through sheets of plastic, and you might think that wouldn’t be that personal, but it really was,” Dormire said.
Thursday’s “hugging station” event is set for 12:30 p.m. at Redstone Highlands in Murrysville.