Texas to test nursing homes
ABBOTT ORDER: State health officials told to come up with plan
Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said Texas will begin testing all nursing home residents and staff for the new coronavirus, following public pleas and a directive from the White House to boost surveillance at the facilities nationwide.
Advocates for residents welcomed the move, saying it was long overdue.
“I will applaud this action by the governor, but it’s only a half-hearted measure,” said Brian Lee, executive director of the Austin-based nonprofit Families for Better Care. “This could have been done weeks ago. It should have been done weeks ago.”
Nursing homes have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, with infections and deaths mounting across the country. Almost half of the reported COVID-19 deaths in Texas have been at nursing homes or assisted living centers, according to records.
Earlier on Monday, Vice President Mike Pence recommended governors in all states ramp up testing at nursing homes in the next two weeks. President Donald Trump later said he would mandate it, if necessary.
Abbott, a Republican, called on state health officials to figure out the details and implement a plan. He did not provide a timeline for the testing, or indicate how frequently it would occur.
“Texas is working to rapidly expand our testing capacity — es
pecially among vulnerable populations in Texas nursing homes,” he said in a statement. “This important collaboration among (agencies) will ensure that any potential clusters of COVID-19 cases in nursing homes are quickly detected and contained.”
States such as New York, Maryland and Oklahoma have already begun mandating widespread testing at their nursing homes. In New York, the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said facilities that don’t test their employees at least twice a week will lose their licenses.
About 200 Texas nursing homes have reported cases of COVID-19, and advocates believe there are many more where the virus is spreading. The state has about 1,200 nursing homes, not including assisted-living facilities, according to Patty Ducayet, an ombudsman for the Health and Human Services Commission.
“I’m very pleased with this announcement,” Ducayet said. “I think it shows people are absolutely listening to the call from advocates to sort out who is healthy and who is not. This is really going to tell us where we stand in our facilities and where we need to respond.”
Until now, the state has prioritized testing for all residents and staff at facilities where cases have been confirmed, Ducayet said. In other facilities, those who show symptoms are being tested.
The Department of State Health Services, which is managing the pandemic response, did not immediately respond to a request for details on how the new testing push will occur.
“Ideally you want rapid tests being done in all our facilities in a systematic way, done in correlation with local health authorities so that residents and their families know what’s going on,” Ducayet said. “It’s really important that residents and their families have information.”
The health commission has so far released only limited details about nursing home outbreaks, citing concerns about confidentiality. Families and caregivers say they have been left in the dark.
Lee said the state should be supplying all facilities with rapidresponse tests that they can administer routinely, to spot outbreaks when they first occur. That is especially important for staff who travel between facilities and their communities, he and Ducayet said.
“Testing staff is absolutely critical because they have to leave the facilities and go see their families,” Ducayet said.