Report: Keys nursing home didn’t divulge possible COVID-19 deaths
A Florida Keys nursing home that has become a cluster for novel coronavirus cases did not report the deaths of 13 people at the facility to the state Department of Health, including seven people who were suspected to have possibly died from the disease, according to a report from the state agency that regulates nursing homes.
The report not only highlights the opaque nature of the communications between the facility’s management and state health officials, as well as relatives of those living inside, it adds confusion over the official number of people who have contracted COVID-19 — and died from it — in the Florida Keys.
The May 2 report, from the Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees nursing homes in Florida, does not provide the dates for when the people died, but says their deaths were discovered when state inspectors reviewed the facility’s admission and discharge log during a recent unannounced visit.
“Seven of the deaths were suspicious for COVID-19,” the report states.
Since the facility, Crystal
Health and Rehab Center on Plantation Key, did not report the deaths, the Florida Department of Health has never been able to determine if the people died from COVID-19, said Bob Eadie, administrator for the state Health Department in Monroe County.
The official death count from the disease in the Keys is three people since early April, according to the latest numbers released from state health department.
“They are embalmed and interred or cremated,” Eadie said Thursday.
“They would’ve been long gone.”
He said the deaths likely occurred between March and April.
“We’re looking at it from hindsight to some extent,” Eadie said.
In the AHCA report, the medical director of the facility told inspectors she did order COVID-19 tests for the seven people. It’s not clear from the report if the tests were ever conducted. Eadie said he was not aware they were.
According to the latest numbers from the Florida Department of Health, no deaths from COVID-19 have been reported at Crystal Health.
Rumors that more than a dozen people had died at the facility have been circulating in the community since late April.
Responding to an inquiry from the Miami Herald, Tiffany Fridley, director of operations for the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office, said earlier this month that no bodies from Crystal Health were ever brought to the office for autopsies.
“We have not received any decedents from Crystal Health nursing home,” she said in a May 12 email.
The owners of the nursing home did not respond to a request for comment on this story and a previous report that at least one resident who was in isolation because he had tested for COVID-19 had gone more than a week without basic hygiene services.
According to the Florida
Department of Health, 15 residents and seven staff members at Crystal Health have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, since earlier this month. The department sent a “strike team” to the facility after two elderly women died there within days of a staff speech therapist testing positive in late April.
Later tests revealed the women did not have the disease, according to the Health Department.
On May 10, the Agency for Health Care Administration issued emergency orders requiring nursing homes and assisted-living facilities to allow state health officials to enter their premises to conduct
COVID-19 testing of residents and staff.
The AHCA report states the nursing home never informed the Department of Health of the 13 other deaths.
For reasons not immediately clear, dates are redacted from the report. For example, the report states that a Health Department nurse told inspectors the facility provided the agency “no fact-based reports of resident deaths since [redacted].”
AHCA did not respond to questions about why the dates were removed from the document.
Nevertheless, the report details not only the unreported deaths, but that management failed to implement adequate precautions for residents and staff even after the outbreak was discovered.
The disaster preparedness planner for the Health Department in Monroe County told inspectors that “he had learned of four of the deaths through other channels,” according to the report.
On a date not specified in the report, the medical director for Crystal Health told inspectors she had ordered COVID-19 tests for seven people who died at the facility, according to the report. However, determining if the tests were ever conducted is difficult because those deaths were never reported to the Health Department, inspectors said in their report.
“In an interview on [redacted] at 1:32 p.m., the facility Administrator confirmed she had not reported the deaths,” the report states.
Later in the report, inspectors detail seeing residents throughout the building watching movies in a common area, not social distancing or wearing masks.
Inspectors also noted 14 residents under investigation for potentially having COVID-19, referred to as “PUI,” meaning positive under investigation, sitting in their rooms with their doors open.
“In an interview on [redacted] at 3:25 p.m., the administrator acknowledged the doors to rooms with PUI for COVID-19 should be closed,” the report states.