The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Nursing homes cited for poor infection control
State inspectors are faulting five nursing homes for failing to establish adequate infection prevention plans and not separating patients as the coronavirus spread through their facilities.
The nursing homes — located in East Haven, Seymour, Orange, Chester and Waterford — have collectively had 77 confirmed and probable coronavirus deaths.
The facilities were surveyed last month after Gov. Ned Lamont ordered spot inspections of the state’s 215 nursing homes.
The reports show similar issues at each of the nursing homes, including inadequate testing to determine who should be separated and staff who didn’t change gloves after moving from a COVID-19 area to a non-COVID-19 wing.
In fact, inspectors for several years have routinely faulted many nursing homes for inadequate in
fection control plans — long before COVID-19, past reports show.
Between 2017 and 2019, Connecticut nursing homes were fined $2.3 million for a variety of violations, federal records show.
So far, there have been 1,927 COVID related deaths at state nursing homes and assisted living facilities — or about 70 percent of the total deaths statewide.
Mathew Barrett, spokesman for Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, said the inspections were specifically focused on infection control.
“Therefore it’s not the case that findings are overwhelmingly infection control related in a broad based survey; here it is exclusively what is being surveyed by regulators,” Barrett said.
Barrett added nursing homes overall have been doing a good job given a difficult situation.
“Nursing homes have been performing at an extraordinary level during the pandemic, especially when considering the constantly changing guidance from public health officials as they learned more about the highly contagious virus and its transmission from asymptomatic carriers,” Barrett said.
“Nursing homes have also been challenged by the lack of available testing and that industrywide nursing testing is just this week becoming a priority,” he added. “The inadequacy of personal protective equipment has been widely reported.”
Lack of testing
The findings are similar at all five nursing homes, which includes Whispering Pines Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in East Haven, Orange Health Care Center, Aaron Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation in Chester and the New London Sub Acute Nursing in Waterford.
In a statement released on its website Thursday, Athena Health Care Systems, which owns the Shady Knoll Health Center in Seymour, seemed to anticipate the state’s criticism.
“Since this pandemic began, we have been constrained due to having a limited number of test kits and supplies necessary to test all nursing home residents,” Athena said.
“Once tested, residents will be appropriately cohorted,” the statement said, using the term that refers to the process of separating COVID positive patients from non-positive ones.
Inspectors faulted Shady Knoll for not having an adequate “infection and prevention control program to help prevent the development and transmission of communicable diseases and infections.”
Inspectors also said the facility should have better identified infected patients and those who tested positive for COVID-19 should have been separated from non-COVID patients.
As of Thursday, 29 patients at Shady Knoll had died with the coronavirus and six others were presumed to have died with the disease.
Tim Brown, a spokesman for Athena, said the facility has submitted a corrective action plan to the state that was accepted and is in compliance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements.
“From the beginning of this crisis, we have implemented extensive infection control measures to protect residents,” Brown said, noting the policies and procedures are “available for state review at any time.
A variety of violations
At Whispering Pines in East Haven, where 25 patients have died with COVID-19, inspectors found an inadequate infection defense plan and inadequate separation of COVID positive and negative patients.
“Residents who were asymptomatic were being cohorted with residents who were symptomatic; once residents became symptomatic, exposure would have likely taken place and difficult to contain,” inspectors said.
The report also states the facility was “isolating where they could” but by the first week of April residents in different parts of the building began exhibiting fevers.
“At that point, it was felt the virus was likely spreading throughout the facility,” inspectors wrote.
Terrence Brown, the administrator for Whispering Pines, said the facility is appealing the state’s findings.
“Caring as it does for the most vulnerable in the community, Whispering Pines followed all proper protocols and guidance from both the Connecticut Health Department and the CDC from the beginning of the outbreak,” Brown said.
“We are confident that we have done so and continue to do so, and we object to the content and accuracy of the findings of the Department of Public Health report, and consequently we are filing an appeal,” Brown said.
At the Aaron Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation in Chester, inspectors faulted staff for not changing their plastic gloves after moving from a COVID wing of the facility to a non COVID area.
Inspectors noted nurses and maintenance workers touched a variety of objects, pointing out that can spread the virus.
The Orange Health Care Center was cited for not establishing an adequate infection program.
Additionally, inspectors said the facility failed to adopt and implement policies related to the extended use of personal protection equipment when interacting with patients.
Orange Health Care as of Thursday had reported the death of three patients. A call for comment on the inspection report was not returned.
Athena’s statement said it had now has ample testing supplies. The state this week said it planned to ensure all nursing home residents would be tested by month’s end.
“This means that testing for all nursing home residents can now begin,” Athena wrote.