3 dead in virus outbreak at East Bay nursing home
Three people have died from COVID19 at Excell Health Care Center, a nursing home in East Oakland.
“We can confirm that sadly, three residents have passed away from COVID19 at the Center,” spokeswoman Annaliese Impink said Thursday.
At the 99bed facility on High
Street, 36 residents and 17 staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“We are doing everything in our power to protect our residents and staff,” Impink told The Chronicle. She said Excell requires all staff and outside health professionals who work at the facility to have their temperature taken before a shift. When employees don’t feel well, they are directed to stay at home. And visits are restricted under guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most recent health inspection report, on Dec. 5, found fault with the facility.
The Medicare inspection report from the Department of Health and Human Services
found that Excell failed to maintain a medication error rate below the maximum 5%, as required. The facility had a 9.3% medication error rate. Also, in a potentially “lifethreatening” incident, the report said the facility failed to follow a doctor’s order for oxygen administration to a resident.
The facility also failed to follow its infection control and prevention program for two of 18 residents, according to the report, which described a licensed vocational nurse not washing his hands between glove changes. A urinary drainage bag for another resident was found on the floor. And the report said staff neglected the personal hygiene of a severely cognitively impaired woman.
The deaths at Excell bring Alameda County’s known nursing home deaths to 14.
It’s not clear how many COVID19 deaths have occurred at skilled nursing homes across California because the state does not break out those numbers from total death counts. But on Wednesday, the state public health department issued a statement saying that would be done “in the future.”
The department did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Gateway Care & Rehabilitation Center, a skilled nursing facility in Hayward, has 13 reported deaths from the coronavirus, as well as 42 residents and 26 staff members who have tested positive. The facility is under investigation by the Alameda County district attorney’s office after reports surfaced of understaffed nursing, symptomatic employees pressured to work and families left in the dark about about the severity of the outbreak.
East Bay Post Acute, a Castro Valley facility, has reported one death, as well as 25 residents and 23 staff members who tested positive for the coronavirus.