“Heartbreaking” Report Shows Viruses Are Destroying New York Nursing Homes

Albany, New York-The despair caused by the coronavirus in nursing homes was put on a bare Friday in a state survey identifying many New York facilities where multiple patients died in the past few weeks.

According to a survey, 19 state nursing homes in the state reported more than 20 deaths associated with pandemics.

Cobble Hill Health Center, one of Brooklyn’s homes, is listed with 55 deaths. A staff member at a former hospital of the 19th century in the Tony district of Brooklyn, with more than 300 beds, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Four more homes in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island are listed with at least 40 deaths.

“ These are surreal times, and everyone else is, ” said Dr. Roy Goldberg, a medical director at Kings Harbor Multicare Center, who reported 45 dead and 720 beds in the Bronx. As I have, I am suffering.

“All deaths are tragic,” he said.

The survey was released after many days of news media coverage of virus-infected homes, where the family members were stricken while trying to get information about their lonely loved ones. It had to be stacked in the storage room.

The list wasn’t complete. This was based on a survey sent by the state asking for details. There was a nursing home until 2:00 pm. Corresponds to Thursday.

“We only know what they say to us,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Connecticut released a similar list Thursday, reporting that at least 10 residents had died in eight nursing homes.

By Tuesday, at least 2,477 nursing home patients were killed by the virus in New York, according to state statistics. That’s about one-fifth of the state’s virus-related deaths. In Connecticut, residents of nursing homes account for 375 deaths from the state’s 971 virus.

By this week, officials in several states were deadly, saying that patients were worthy of privacy or were challenging to determine if an extremely vulnerable patient died from a virus or other cause. Refused to identify a nursing home with a common outbreak.

Many nursing home managers have also declined to disclose the information, and this week, Cuomo said the state would notify patients and their families home within 24 hours if a resident became infected or died. I will come to demand.

Stephen Hans, chairman and CEO of the New York State Medical Center and New York Center for Living Support, said it reflects the fact that the centers handle highly vulnerable patients.

“Outbreaks are not the result of carelessness or inadequate facilities,” he said in a statement. “The essence of nursing care is a high-touch environment where you can’t keep a social distance. Staff are helping residents by bathing, dressing, eating and other personal everyday needs.”

He also accused the State Department of Health by exacerbating the situation by prohibiting refusing to admit patients with COVID-19 if their nursing home was medically stable.

Nursing homes have been known to be trouble-prone since the outset. Washington homes lost 43 inhabitants early in the spread of the virus.

Yet, despite that early warning, many nursing homes were not well-equipped with personal protective equipment. Resident and staff tests are mottled at best.

In mid-March, federal officials banned visitors, suspended group activity, and forced workers to be screened for respiratory symptoms, by which time the virus had quietly spread.

Goldberg, Medical Director of Kings Harbor, has created two dedicated COVID-19 units to treat infected patients there and is following “all health department and CDC recommendations and regulations,” the members said. .

“Obtaining a PPE has always been a challenge, but we are always one step ahead.”

Howard Zucker, a New York State Health Commissioner, said he provided adequate personal protective equipment to nursing homes to help with staffing.

“We are working with individual nursing homes to solve it. Contact them and if you need a PPE … we have a stockpile.”

As of Friday, at least 6,461 deaths have been linked to coronaviruses in nursing homes and nursing homes nationwide, according to media reports and the State Department of Health’s AP tally.

Chris Laxton, Executive Director of The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, commended the state for publishing the data. However, he believes that deaths associated with the spread of COVID-19 are still underreported.

“Even if surges start to level out in communities and hospitals, we expect growth in both cases and deaths,” Laxton said. “We urgently need PPE, especially gowns, test kits, and surge staff, to prevent staff from moving between buildings and risk further spread.”

Some nursing homes voluntarily disclose information that differs from the numbers released on Friday.

A state study found that 10 people were killed at the Montgomery Nursing Rehabilitation Center, about 50 miles north of New York City, while vice president of the facility, Vincent Maniscarco, said 21 people had recently died. Eight of those patients had symptoms consistent with the virus, but died before being tested.

“It is a very difficult time for staff to lose the people they care about every day,” Maniskarco said.

Many of these patients died alone in home workers to comfort them, as visitors were banned to prevent infections from nursing homes.

“When someone dies, they celebrate the life of the resident,” Maniskarco said.

The outbreak killed 46 people in a retirement home outside Richmond, Virginia, and 22 in a home in central Indiana. A county official in northern New Jersey Thursday said at least 26 patients died in a nursing home in Andover.

According to a report from the Associated Press, nursing homes continued to be infected as a result of screening fever to staff members and asking about symptoms, none of the infected but asymptomatic people were caught.