© Nan ThomasRita Thomas, 95, rests on a hospital bed in her daughter’s Pasco County home, where she came to die. Thomas was so frightened and alone by the months of prolonged isolation brought on by the state’s coronavirus lockdown of her ALF, she told her daughters she had stopped eating.
Rita Thomas was a victim of COVID-19, but she never had the disease.
The vivacious and outgoing 95-year-old, who lived independently until last year and celebrated her most recent birthday in February with friends at a Pasco County diner, willed herself to die two weeks ago because she could no longer handle the pandemic-imposed isolation.
"She said to me: 'Linda. I've had a good life. I am ready to die. I don't want to live this way anymore. I stopped eating,' '' her daughter Linda Gardner said, recalling the conversation she had with her mother in August. Weeks later, her mother was hospitalized for complications from malnutrition.
For the last 18 months Thomas lived at Rosecastle of Zephyrhills Assisted Living & Memory Care, an 85-bed long-term care community near Tampa. She filled her days with routine: dining out at restaurants, playing bingo and cards, going for daily walks and visiting every weekend with her daughter, family and friends.
But on March 13, when Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Agency for Health Care Administration ordered that visits be banned from nursing homes and assisted living facilities in an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID-19, all that daily activity stopped. Although the order allowed homes to make exceptions for certain family members to visit their relatives, most homes, including Rosecastle, resisted.
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