Report: Most virus deaths at nursing homes

Confirmed nursing home deaths accounted for 62.5 percent of the 624 statewide deaths associated with COVID-19 reported from April 22 to 29, according to state figures.

When the number of probable deaths recorded in that weeklong period is included, that figure jumps up to 77 percent. Overall, nursing home deaths make up nearly 58 percent of deaths reported statewide since March.

Yet none of those numbers takes into account the number of deaths at assisted living facilities across the state, information which has yet to be released.

Nursing home advocates said it will likely take

months to determine why the facilities were hit so hard and if protocols needed to be implemented sooner or changed to prevent a similar spike in deaths in the future.

“It’s way too early to point to a clear definitive reason on what went wrong and what went right,” said Matthew Barrett, president of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities and Connecticut Center for Assisted Living. “I think that will be evaluated across the nation.”

But Barrett and nursing home operators in Connecticut this week have said the state should have prioritized the distribution of test kits and personal protective equipment at their facilities — like it did for hospitals from the start.

As of Friday, 2,339 people across the state had died with COVID-19.

A handful of nursing homes have as many as 50 percent of residents who have tested positive for the disease, state figures showed. At least two homes have had 35 deaths or more. In all, 149 of the state’s 215 nursing homes have had at least one resident test positive for COVID-19.

It is a trend that prompted officials from the state Department of Public Health a few weeks ago to begin emergency inspections of nursing homes. The DPH has not commented on whether any investigations will lead to fines or sanctions.

This week about three dozen medics, nurses and sanitarians with the Connecticut National Guard were called in to attend the inspections which DPH officials conceded at times took about one hour per facility. Some of the inspections were done by “Facetime” video, according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s chief operating officer Josh Geballe.

Two of the state’s largest nursing home entities — operating a total of 30 homes combined — told Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday that there needs to be better stockpiling and distribution of PPE for the facilities in the future.

It’s a need the New England Health Care Workers Union, District 1199 SEIU, which represents roughly 30 percent of nursing home workers, has been pointing out for weeks. They spoke of having to reuse masks for more than a week and wear ‘johnnies,” the garment usually donned by residents, rather than actual protective gowns when dealing with residents.

Barrett calls the union reports “allegations” that should be investigated.

He said he agrees with the union that PPE is a problem, but it’s a nationwide problem, he said. “It goes across the globe,” he said. “There was not a readiness for a pandemic that no one could foresee.”

He did concede however that effective action to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is impossible without a good PPE supply chain.

Factors such as staff working more than one job at multiple homes or working a home care gig in addition to their nursing home job also is likely playing a role in the transmission of the disease, Barrett said.

But nursing home officials contend that more should have been done to protect one of the state’s most vulnerable populations including giving PPE and testing for the homes a higher priority.

They also noted that resident and staff testing needs to be on par with that at hospitals.

“We need adequate PPE reserves,” said David Skoczulek, vice president of business development for the iCare Health Network, which runs 11 nursing homes in the state. “We need to be able to continue to recruit, retain and pay excellent staff. We need adequate funding to maintain quality care in a safe and dignified environment. And we need to be front of mind and not an afterthought as we care for a million and a half Americans every day.”

Ten of the iCare facilities in Connecticut have at least one resident who has tested positive for COVID-19, Skoczulek said. Some of the centers had their first case in the last week to 10 days, he said. Skoczulek declined to specify the number of staff who have tested positive, calling it a “personnel matter.” But he confirmed that there have been staff cases at every facility where residents have tested positive.

The company has a dedicated team working to secure PPE globally, Skoczulek said. “No matter what it takes,” he said. “And it takes a lot.”

Genesis HealthCare, which operates 19 nursing homes in Connecticut, has had 600 out of the 2,800 residents they serve and about 200 staff members test positive for COVID-19, according to the entity’s chief medical officer, Dr. Richard Feifer.

The company is now working with the state to designate the Quinnipiac Valley Center as a “COVID-positive” building to “help cohort” positive patients from hospitals and nursing homes together away from those who haven’t contracted the disease, Feifer said.

“Even within our nursing homes, we prioritize the cohorting of patients who test positive away from those who may be vulnerable to infection,” he said.

Their employees do not move between the locations due to the pandemic, he said. As a large organization, they can shift PPE from location to location if needed and have been following federal guidelines to “re-use and extend” the use of face masks, he said. “However, as this pandemic expands, this is not a sustainable solution,” Feifer said.

Moving forward, nursing homes need to be on the same priority level as hospitals when it comes to the distribution and stockpiling of PPE and in terms of testing, Feifer said.