Family furious after 87-year-old mother tests positive twice for COVID-19

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    NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV ) — Even bound to a walker, and no car to get here there, Theresa Brown is determined to get her mother Mary Perkins out of the Trevecca Center for Rehabilitation and Healing.

“If I get made enough, I get to mine. That’s my momma. I’ll run to her,” Brown said.

Brown said this week she learned her 87-year-old mother is once again COVID-19 positive, after being positive for the virus in early June.

“She can’t keep on fighting off that disease. She’s 87. She doesn’t have that much to fight with her immune system,” Brown said.

Brown now joins other children of residents, like Charles Horton, in questioning what’s being done to contain the virus.

With 89 cases, the center has the second highest number of COVID-19 infections in nursing homes in the state.

Horton told News4 Investigates in May that he’s preparing to sue after his father died from coronavirus.

“I’m not real happy with them naturally and I haven’t had one condolence call,” Horton said.

News4 Investigates earlier exposed internal emails from Metro Public Health Department workers who expressed frustration getting answers themselves, in one case writing, “Trevecca has been tough to reach so it’s been moving slow.”

Brown said she can’t get an answer as to how her mother was re-infected.

News4 Investigates called the center Friday and was told no administrators were available to answer questions because of the holiday.

All families do get are texts from the center that always contain this statement: “We continue to be diligent with infection control.”

Brown said the center seems to be unaware of what the toll this is taking on the people inside and outside the building.

“They don’t understand what we’re going through out here. That’s the only mother I have,” Brown said.

News4 Investigates will follow up with the center after the holiday weekend to inquire as to what steps are being taken to control the virus.

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