American Cancer Society to shut down all Hope Lodges due to coronavirus concerns
Residents of the American Cancer Society’s Richard M. Shulze Family Foundation Hope Lodge at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, where patients and their guests often stay while receiving treatment, were told late last week that they would have to seek new accommodations due to the escalating threat of the novel coronavirus.
On Sunday, the American Cancer Society confirmed the closure and said it extended to all of its more than 30 locations across the country. It was a decision the national nonprofit, based in Atlanta, had been putting off for weeks, and one made with deep regret, Dr. Len Licthenfeld, the group’s deputy medical director said on Sunday.
A number of weeks ago, Lichtenfeld said, American Cancer Society had been tracking high-risk areas on a world map, and then a U.S. map, outlining hotspots with red circles. The circles were drawn around the Seattle area, then New York and Boston.
Now, governors across the country are ordering residents to shelter in place — a dynamic Lichtenfeld said forced the organization’s hand. The red circles kept growing.
“This was the absolute last thing we wanted to do, but when we start getting shelter-in-place orders, we just have to pay attention to that for all concerned,” he said. “We had no choice.”
Janice Miller, who drove down to the Hope Lodge in Jacksonville with her daughter, Lisa Miller Bennsky, from Virginia in early January, said she would be willing to sign a waiver or do any additional steps needed to acknowledge the risk inherit in staying at the Hope Lodge, but preferred to stay put and didn’t know how else she would find appropriate housing.
“You’re already in stress mode, and then you find out your home is pulled out from underneath you,” Miller said.
Miller said her daughter, who suffers from a rare genetic disease that required a bone marrow transplant, is incredibly vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, due to a severely reduced immune system.
“To even think about saying in hotels,” she said. “It just terrifies me.”
At the American Cancer Society, Lichtenfeld said the organization had been monitoring the virus’s spread through the U.S. and had taken a number of steps to reduce the risk of infection for its Hope Lodge guests. Those measures included restricting international visitors and checking temperatures for signs of illness. But eventually the reach of the disease was overwhelming.
“It entered what I refer to as the exponential phase,” Lichtenfeld said. “Then we got to the point where it was very clear we had community spread of the virus and we could no longer assure that anyone was not exposed to that virus.”
Beyond state governors’ orders to shelter-in-place, Lichtenfeld said additional guidance from states restricting the ability to work to those who qualified as “essential medical personnel” also influenced the organization’s decision.
Lichtenfeld added that the American Cancer Society has never had to shut down its Hope Lodges before and that the organization would do “everything in its power” to make sure its guests continue to have good lodging and treatment options.
“We hope we don’t have situations where we’re unable to help, but we’re going to try our damnedest to make sure people get the care they need,” he said.
For Miller and her daughter, there were no good options. Miller said she was invited to stay with a friend who is a physician but later learned the home had several steps leading up to its entrance, and her daughter requires a walker or a cane to get around.
“It puts us in a bad position,” Miller said. “They think they’re helping us by putting us out of here because we might be exposed to somebody, but we live 13 to 14 hours from here, so there’s no going home for the weekend.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2020 at 3:52 PM.
