Nursing homes could begin COVID-19 vaccine clinics before holidays
“While details about states’ plans are just becoming clear, we are working quickly and methodically to prepare for this effort and administer the vaccine in our centers.”
All of Connecticut’s 200 or so nursing homes have signed on to get COVID-19 vaccinations for residents and staff as part of a priority push for vulnerable populations, according to officials with the state Department of Public Health.
Because a federal Food and Drug Administration advisory committee approved the vaccine developed by Pfizer Thursday, the first shots could be in the hands of the state within days.
But health care union leaders and members say they have not been told by state or nursing home officials how the vaccinations will roll out for long-term caregivers, according to Pedro Zayas, communications director for the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199 NE, SEIU.
“We don't know if it’s going to be the employer or the state,” who is coordinating the vaccinations, Zayas said. “One of the concerns is that we don't know the plan and if the plan is for employers to give the vaccinations, how are they going to hold them accountable? Based on what we've seen, there isn't a lot of holding them accountable.”
The union is the largest in the state representing 6,000 nursing home health care workers at homes throughout Connecticut.
Nursing homes are just this week beginning to hold webinars with CVS and Walgreens on the vaccine rollout at long-term care facilities, said Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, an organization that represents nursing homes.
He said that's why facility staff have not yet been briefed on the exact plans for vaccine distribution.
“This is not clandestine, it’s because it’s just being learned about now," he said.
Connecticut officials are also planning to vaccinate staff of long-term care facilities, a move Barrett praised.
However, union members are wary after a punishing spring when nursing home residents died by the hundreds and staff was forced to confront nursing home owners for more personal protective equipment, including masks and gowns, Zayas said.
Many members are still wrestling with inadequate or no health care, long hours with few days off and canceled vacation
Dr. Richard Feifer, CVS Chief Medical Officer
time due to staffing shortages, he said.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March through Dec. 1, 11,157 nursing home residents have contracted COVID-19 resulting in 3,236 deaths, according to DPH figures.
Nursing home resident deaths account for more than 60 percent of the state’s 5,285 deaths due to COVID-19. During the same period, 1,918 nursing home staff have contracted the disease with three deaths.
But, Zayas said, the only information that union officials and members have received on the vaccines is by watching press conferences with Gov. Ned Lamont.
Since union officials have not been briefed on any plans, the union has no way of knowing what the record keeping practices for the vaccinations will be or if union delegates will be able to monitor vaccination documents at each home, Zayas said.
“We don’t know what can be done to improve the process,” Zayas said. “There are so many moving pieces and we have no information. At this point it would be irresponsible for us to tell union members to take the vaccinations.”
Zayas said there has also been no education component to explain to employees that the vaccines are safe and effective. “Health care workers are happy to take the vaccine but in order to endorse the vaccines they need more information to feel safe,” he said.
CVS could start delivering the vaccine to Genesis nursing homes as soon as Dec. 21, said the company’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Feifer.
The company runs 17 facilities in Connecticut with 2,600 beds. About 75 percent of the beds were full as of the last quarter, company officials said. One of the Genesis homes, Kimberly Hall North in Windsor, was one
of the hardest hit with 45 COVID-19 deaths early in the pandemic, according to DPH records.
The vaccinations are “unquestionably” the biggest effort “ever undertaken” and will help prevent further tragedies, especially among the vulnerable nursing home population, Feifer said.
“While details about states’ plans are just becoming clear, we are working quickly and methodically to prepare for this effort and administer the vaccine in our centers,” he said.
The company has a “robust” communication and education effort underway, encouraging staff, residents and their families to be vaccinated, Feifer said.
“Through communications, engagement and trust-building, we have a goal of 100 percent staff vaccination without attempting to impose a requirement,” Feifer said.
Timothy Brown, a spokesman for Athena Health Care Systems, said the company is working with CVS to vaccinate residents and staff.
“The guidance is essentially
that they will come to the building... go room to room administering the vaccine to our residents, and we're going to have a clinic-like setting setup in our building for our employees,” he said.
Seven of Athena's 24 facilities so far have confirmed vaccination dates with CVS, he said. The earliest is on Dec. 22, the latest falls in the second week of January.
Brown said he did not know how the dates were determined.
“All of our buildings were required weeks ago to put information in the portal about how many residents they have and other data about the building, and now they’re just receiving notices almost on a rolling basis on when their clinic is set up,” he said.
Like the flu shot, Brown said Athena will not require residents or staff to take the vaccine.
He said the organization's leadership team is in daily contact with officials from the state's Department of Public Health and has been passing along updates on the vaccination plan to the
families of their residents.
“There's a whole other process to this which is families have to fill out consent forms for anyone that has a healthcare proxy over their loved one,” he said.
That is becoming the biggest hurdle at the moment, he said. At the moment, he said, it appeared families would have to fill out a hard copy consent form, rather than signing an electronic PDF.
He did not suggest patients would be prioritized over one another to receive the vaccine. “As long as they are willing to receive the vaccine, our understanding is that everyone will be taken care of that day,” he said.
Brown said facilities plan to continue mask rules and using PPE as necessary until guidance changes, but said the arrival of the vaccine represents “a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“At least at the nursing homes we should see the second doses administered probably by February at the latest, so I think there's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel for us,” he said.