Nursing home neglect deaths surge in shadows

Care suffers as workers focus on virus patients

As more than 90,000 of the nation’s long-term care residents have died in the coronavirus pandemic, advocates for the elderly say a tandem wave of fatalities is quietly claiming tens of thousands more who are succumbing not to the virus but to neglect by overwhelmed staffs and slow declines from

isolation.

Nursing home watchdogs are being flooded with reports of residents kept in soiled diapers so long their skin peeled off, left with bedsores that cut to the bone, and allowed to wither away in starvation or thirst.

Beyond that are swelling numbers of less clear-cut deaths that doctors believe have been fueled by despair and desperation from being cut off from loved ones – listed on some death certificates as “failure to thrive.”

“What the pandemic did was uncover what was really going on in these fa

cilities,” said June Linnertz, whose father died in June after she found him in what she said were putrid conditions at his Plymouth, Minnesota, assisted living facility. “It was bad before, but it got exponentially worse.”

Nursing home expert Stephen Kaye, a professor at the Institute on Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed data from 15,000 facilities for The Associated Press, finding that for every two COVID-19 victims in long-term care, there

The nearly 53,000-square-foot building will include approximately 14,000 square feet of dedicated lab space, 14,000 square feet of learning and gathering space, according to board materials. The facility will also include a 21-seat seminar room and 96-seat cafe.

Ohio State Energy Partners is contributing a total of $50 million to the project, which completely covers the cost of construction. Of the remaining funds, $7.5 million will be used as seed money for Ohio State ENGIE Labs projects, $4 million for building operating funds, and $1.8 million for west campus infrastructure.

Within the building, work will focus on finding “innovative solutions for energy reduction” and will develop and use innovations in sustainable building design, board materials said. The center’s focus will be developed by an advisory committee chaired by the university and consisting of members from Ohio State faculty and staff, Ohio State Energy Partners, and the Columbus community.

“This project represents the kind of innovation that will fully leverage Ohio State’s academic strengths with ENGIE’S industry expertise,” Serdar Tufekci, head of major campuses with ENGIE North America said in a press release. “We are eager to connect the innovation center to the global energy market and bring together technology, services, data and people to tackle some of the world’s toughest energy and sustainability challenges.”

Catfish Biff’s

With the proposed acquisition of the Catfish Biff’s property, Ohio State is poised to purchase the last sliver of W. 11th Avenue land that it doesn’t currently own.

Ohio State trustees were expected to vote Thursday afternoon on a proposal to buy the property at 75 W. 11th Avenue, where Catfish Biff’s currently sits. The restaurant closed indefinitely in March amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a post on their Facebook page. The restaurant later posted on its Twitter account that it would reopen in January of 2021.

The university would pay $1 million for the property, which is just .06 acres, to owner Hays & Hucek, Inc. When Hays & Hucek acquired the property more than 30 years ago, in 1987, the sale price was just $70,000.

The owner would continue to operate the restaurant through May of 2021, under a lease with Ohio State, board materials said.

Cannon Drive

The university is also moving forward on a second phase of an ongoing project to relocate and straighten Cannon Drive and strengthen flood protection in the area.

The first phase of the project, which focused on Cannon Drive between King Avenue and John Herrick Drive, was completed last year.

Trustees were expected to vote Thursday afternoon on the authorization of $48.6 million for the second phase, which will focus on the portion of Cannon Drive between John Herrick and Woody Hayes drives.

The project would straighten the northern end of Cannon Drive, eliminating the current S-curve; create a new signalized intersection; construct a bus pull-off at the southeast corner of Herrick and Cannon drives to serve Ohio State’s new hospital tower; and expand the river park in the area.

West Campus outpatient care center

Also up for trustee approval Thursday was $164.2 million for additional construction funds for the Wexner Medical Center’s outpatient care center on West Campus. The total project is budgeted for nearly $350 million, and was first proposed three years ago along with Ohio State’s new hospital tower.

The 385,000-square-foot, cancerfocused ambulatory facility is scheduled to open in 2023. It will also include a 65,000-square-foot proton therapy center, in partnership with Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

The facility also will include outpatient operating rooms, radiology rooms, an extended recovery unit, a diagnostic imaging center, and retail pharmacy, among other spaces. It also includes a 640-space parking garage.

Check Dispatch.com for full coverage of the Ohio State Board of Trustees board meeting late Thursday afternoon.

jsmola@dispatch.com@

AP As more than 90,000 of America’s long-term care residents have died in a coronavirus pandemic that has pushed staffs to the limit, advocates for the elderly say a tandem wave of deaths separate from the virus has claimed thousands more.