Flemming talks mental health at Sheriff's Breakfast

The Mason County Sheriff's Office breakfast featured retired Brig. Gen. Stan Flemming as the guest speaker Feb. 25 at Little Creek Casino Resort.

The Shelton NJROTC program presented the colors before Flemming took the podium. Fleming, who received his doctorate in osteopathic medicine and is board certified in family medicine and a retired officer in the Army and Army Reserve, talked about senior mental health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Flemming is a University Place city councilor and a former state representative for the 28th Legislative District

He said prior to October 2019, 1.7 million licensed beds nationally with about 1.4 million occupied and there were new Medicare rules regarding nursing homes.

He said in November 2019, no one had heard of the new coronavirus before the first reported case at Life Care Center in Kirkland and at Renton Nursing and Rehab.

"I found it really ironic that when COVID first started, the subject matter experts became the sports stars, the Hollywood stars, news media," Fleming said. "But on the medicine side of things, we knew nothing. If you look and study about the COVID virus, we rate these viruses in terms of their level of intelligence. This is perhaps the most intelligent virus we've ever seen. Prior to that, it was the HIV virus. The coronavirus has an ability to sustain itself at all costs, it will mutate in a heartbeat and we've seen multiple."

Washington has reported 1.43 million cases and 12,076 deaths. The state is about 73.4% vaccinated. Flemming said vaccines are the best way to combat COVID.

Flemming said 60% to 80% of patients in nursing homes are suffering from mild to moderate depression due to the pandemic. He said this is due to the country going into "full panic mode" about COVID instead of using a clinical approach when the country didn't know anything about the virus.

"These folks were instantly cut off from the world. These are elderly people, these are the people that were on the long-term care side of facilities," Flemming said. "Their rooms are typically a 12-by-12 room, and they were completely shut off. They were locked down in those rooms for 21 months. They were not allowed to leave, so they have no outside social stimulation, there's no physical/occupational therapy and the highlight of their day was when the food service people brought their food. For 21 months, they didn't see their families, they didn't get their therapies, they didn't get anything."

He said the isolation was detrimental to both the seniors and the families. He said he's seen similar things with prisoners of war who had been in isolation, including withdrawal, distrust and anxiety.

He said COVID has taught the country how we can deal with the next pandemic in nursing homes, including empowering nursing homes to help the patients feel safe. Flemming said communicating and engaging families will be important, especially for patients with dementia.

"Looking at the lessons learned when we did the ban on visitations and the restrictions of isolation, they will have a long-term ramification in terms of what they did during this pandemic and the goal is perhaps not to do that again going forward," Flemming said. "... Part of it I think was we were in a panic mode. The other part was we didn't really apply a lot of science. The tragedy of this particular pandemic is that decisions are not being driven by science today, they're being driven by politics. The thing we have to get out of this is to keep, and I can say this because I happen to be an elected also, keep the politicians out of it because they don't know squat, and I say that in a kind way. They just don't."

Three retired generals attended the breakfast, including James McElroy and Thomas Cole along with Flemming. Flemming signed copies of his book "Broken Eagle: Flashpoint" for audience members following his speech.

Author Bio

Matt Baide, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
Email: [email protected]

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