Dominic Cappello, 6, has been hospitalized since Monday at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York. His parents cannot visit him because he has COVID-19, and they had symptoms resembling the illness.
The young brain cancer patient hasn’t seen his mom or dad in person in three days.
Six-year-old Dominic Cappello is frightened, lying in New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital since Monday without his parents at his bedside. He screams and cries at night when he receives a daily injection, his mother, Lynn Cappello, said Thursday in a phone interview with NJ Advance Media.
But New York-Presbyterian officials have told his parents to stay away, even if that means leaving the boy alone, the Cappello family says.
The Verona boy tested positive for COVID-19 on April 28 while undergoing chemotherapy at the hospital. Lynn and her husband, Al, were also exhibiting symptoms.
New York-Presbyterian says it is observing its COVID-19 visitation rules to ensure the safety of other patients. But the Cappello family is outraged, arguing the hospital should make an exception for a sick child separated from his parents.
The conflict is yet another complicated issue in the age of COVID.
“There would be no exposure,” said Cappello, 39, a registered nurse who was working per diem jobs until her son was diagnosed Dec. 29 with medulloblastoma, an aggressive malignant brain tumor that appears at the base of the skull. “I would be in the isolation room, confined in there with him.”
Officials at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital did not immediately return email and voicemail requests for comment. Dr. Lisa Saiman, a hospital epidemiologist whom Cappello said will not allow her or her husband to visit their son, did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment.
Dominic’s grandmother has stayed with the boy since Monday so that he is not alone.
Lynn Cappello — whose three other children tested positive for the coronavirus last week — said she appealed to Saiman and other hospital employees Thursday afternoon in a conference call, but they refused to make an exception.
New York-Presbyterian’s stance is consistent with the policy stated on its website: “Visitors who are sick will not be permitted to enter the Hospital; this is without exception.”
But Cappello, who says she has filed a complaint with the New York Department of Health, says the website also notes that exceptions may be made in extraordinary circumstances.
“This is a child,” she said. “When he gets his injection at night, I have to FaceTime with him as my child is screaming and crying. A mother should be able to be at her child’s bedside to hold him while he’s crying.”
Al Cappello will be allowed to visit Dominic on Friday after observing a 10-day isolation period, Lynn Cappello said. She cannot visit until Sunday.
Dominic was admitted to the hospital April 25 to undergo chemotherapy, Lynn Cappello said. The next day, his siblings tested positive for the coronavirus, and their father, who was exhibiting symptoms, stopped visiting him.
“We were trying to do the right thing,” Lynn Cappello said.
She remained at her son’s bedside. Before he was discharged on April 28, he tested positive for the coronavirus. Hospital staff told her she probably was positive as well.
Dominic returned to the hospital’s clinic Monday for another round of chemotherapy, but after lab results revealed a low white blood cell count, he was readmitted to the hospital.
Lynn Cappello was allowed to stay with him at the clinic, but was told she couldn’t remain once he was admitted into the hospital, she said.
Cappello says that as a nurse, she is mindful of COVID safety precautions. But she maintains the hospital is applying a double standard — enforcing a 10-day isolation and quarantine rule for visitors, but a shorter one for employees to return to work after testing positive.
Cappello said she raised the disparate quarantine periods during Thursday’s conference call, but hospital officials told her employees are trained to wear protective gear that reduce the risk of infection.
“I told them I’m a nurse who got the same training,” she said. “I asked them to fit me for an N95 mask, but they said no.”
Many hospitals, struggling with staffing shortages, scaled back their isolation and quarantine times for employees last year, following a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an interview with the New York Times in December, Joy Valenzuela, a spokeswoman for New York-Presbyterian, said: “Guided by the latest science, our current protocols allow fully vaccinated employees to return to work after seven days.”
Cappello said she is raising the alarm “so that no other child or family has to go through this.”
“Mental health is a hot topic. Hasn’t anyone considered his mental health?” she said. “Dominic is going to be in and out of the hospital for months. He has fears and anxieties he’s developed throughout this entire process.”
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Elizabeth Llorente may be reached at ELlorente@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Liz_Llorente.
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