Marcella Goheen

During COVID-19, Marcella Goheen founded www.essentialcarevisitor.com, a national platform to advocate for vulnerable residents living in long term care facilities to serve families and their loved ones. This effort led to the passing of Senate Bill 614B, by Senator Rachel May – where essential care visitors will never be locked out again. Ms. Goheen served in four working groups for the recently released New York State Master Plan on Aging (Informal Caregivers (Communications and Supports), Long Term Services and Supports (Care Transitions and System Navigation), and Mental Health and Wellness (Cognitive Health), helping to contribute toward aging with dignity in New York State, as directed by Executive Order No. 23, which Governor Hochul signed on November 4, 2022. Marcella’s own Family Essential Program is highlighted in the MPA to be implemented in all nursing homes in New York State by 2027. Marcella has been a frontline caregiver to her beloved husband Robert Victor Viteri, who has resided in a nursing home for nearly a decade and who suffers from an unknown rare neurological orphan disease. She and her husband’s advocacy and education efforts led

current Mayor Eric Adams to proclaim July 1, 2025 Robert Victor Viteri Day in New York City. Ms.

Goheen’s prolific New York Times piece published in the heat of Covid-19, about the vulnerable aging and

disabled in New York City, inspired her first novel about frontline caregiving within an institution (2026).