Albany center sees flare-up
Facility says protocols followed; probe begun
A recent coronavirus outbreak at the St. Peter’s Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Albany began around the time a nurse’s aide who was in quarantine after traveling out of state returned to work, allegedly due to staffing needs, according to a person briefed on the situation.
The nurse’s aide, who had attended a wedding in North Carolina, tested positive for coronavirus after returning to work, according to the same source. At least two nursing home residents who had been treated by the aide subsequently tested positive, the person said.
The facility denied that any employee was asked to return to work while in a 14-day quarantine. Officials there also would not provide information on how many residents or staff members may be in quarantine or have tested positive for coronavirus. But a recorded hotline set up by the facility on Tuesday said the 160-bed nursing home currently has 13 Covid-positive residents as well as five staff members who tested positive and remain at home under quarantine. Eight residents at the facility have died of the illness over the course of the pandemic.
“No aide — or any other worker at St. Peter’s Nursing and Rehabilitation Center — has been asked or ordered to return to work early from a quarantine after traveling to one of the states covered in the governor’s travel advisory,” the hospital’s nursing home said in a statement. “Since the governor issued his advisory on June 24, St. Peter’s Health Partners has been in full compliance with the New York state Department of Health guidance and directives regarding testing, masking and monitoring health care workers who travel to any of the states in question.”
The statement added that the nursing home has mandated a 14-day quarantine for all St. Peter’s Health Partners health care workers who return from one of the states with high infection rates.
Another person familiar with the case, but not authorized the comment publicly, said the employee tested positive in the past two weeks and that the employee told other workers that he did not feel well and had traveled out of state. The employee was sent back upstairs to tend to residents for about three hours before the test result came back positive, the second person said.
It’s unclear whether the infected nurse aide had told his supervisors at the facility that he had traveled out of state and was feeling ill.
Last week, staff members at the facility urged supervisors to ensure that all staff and everyone on the affected floor be tested, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
On June 24, Gov.
Andrew M. Cuomo said anyone traveling to New York from states with a high rate of coronavirus infections would need to self-quarantine for 14 days or face fines. The 19 states included in that list includes North Carolina. There were exceptions made in the order for essential workers, including many in health care.
Under guidance issued by the state on July 2, any health care worker who feels ill after traveling to a high-risk state — or otherwise has symptoms of COVID-19 — should “immediately stop work and isolate at home.”
The guidelines do allow limited circumstances under which a health care worker could return to duty within that 14-day quarantine period, but only if they had traveled to another state for official work. In that case, for instance, they could return to their job if
“staff shortages ... would adversely impact operation of the health care entity, and all other staffing options have been exhausted.”
But traveling out of state for a social engagement would require a health care employee to remain quarantined for 14 days.
The returning health care workers who are called back to work must be asymptomatic; receive a COVID-19 test within 24 hours of returning to New York; check their symptoms and temperature twice a day; wear a mask; and not deal with higherrisk patients, including the elderly.
The state Health Department launched an investigation of the St. Peter’s situation on Monday after being contacted by the Times Union.
“The department is in contact with the facility to better understand all the factors regarding this incident, and more importantly working with the facility to ensure they have appropriate levels of PPE (personal protective equipment) and staffing, adequate resident and staff testing, and that proper infection control and cohorting practices are in place,” said Gary Holmes, a spokesman for the Health Department. “New Yorkers have worked extremely hard to flatten the curve while protecting our most vulnerable populations and we’ll continue to work with this facility, and others, to slow the spread of this virus.”
Albany County reported 10 new COVID-19 infections Monday. In the eight counties that comprise the greater Capital Region, 54 new cases were reported Monday — the highest oneday total in July.