2 die at St. Barnabas as nursing home cases rise
Two people at St. Barnabas Nursing Home in Richland have died of COVID-19 and an additional 18 have tested positive for the coronavirus, the facility announced Tuesday.
Patients who have tested positive are being kept away from others in “isolation pods” in one corner of the building, while all residents in clinical facilities are to remain in their rooms, according to spokesman Jim Lauteri. Meals are served in disposable containers and several staff members have “selflessly” volunteered to work in the pods, he said.
Mr. Lauteri would not provide information about the victims’ names or ages.
Also Tuesday, Beaver County’s coroner said there have been 13 COVID-19 deaths in the county; Pennsylvania reported six deaths in the county as of Monday and increased that to nine as of Tuesday.
And Allegheny County’s Kane Community Living Center in Glen
Hazel said it now has 29 confirmed infections among residents and staff.
The St. Barnabas system had a death at the end of last week and a second early this week, Mr. Lauteri said.
“There’s no way to know if there will be more cases here,” Mr. Lauteri said, highlighting that they only learn of confirmed cases as results come randomly.
“All patients are being quarantined at the nursing home. We’ve created a special area just for COVID-19 patients. We have dedicated staff working in that unit only with all protective gear and equipment. It’s blocked off from other areas. It’s in one corner of the building; residents who were in that building have been moved away.
“We will continue to replenish needs for workers. They are following guidelines from CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].”
St. Barnabas was established in the early 1900s and includes three retirement communities, five living assistance facilities, one nursing home, home care, hospice and a community outpatient medical and dental center across Allegheny, Butler and Beaver counties.
In an effort to lessen exposure to the virus, all St. Barnabas nursing home employees have their temperatures taken whenever they show up for work. If their temperature is above what is acceptable, they are sent home out of “precaution,” although that does not mean a person is positive.
“The focus is to keep everybody
as safe as possible,” Mr. Lauteri said. “We’ve added additional equipment and supplies, and everything our staff needs,” he said. “We’ve also improved our air filtration in the building to improve safety and health of all patients there. With all the stress and difficulty everyone is going through, we have staff who willingly volunteered to work and help out.”
Patients also have had the opportunity to video chat with their loved ones in the last couple of weeks — an effort by staff at St. Barnabas to comfort patients and their concerned families.
This effort was recently scaled back at the nursing home because of demands on nursing staff, Mr. Lauteri said, although the facility is seeking other creative ways to connect patients with relatives.
In Beaver County, Coroner David Gabauer said the number of people who died from COVID-19 more than doubled over this past weekend to 13 from the six that had been reported by the state.
Later Tuesday, the state updated the number of deaths in Beaver County to nine.
“It’s pretty frightening right now,” said Mr. Gabauer, who also owns Gabauer Funeral Home in New Brighton.
Mr. Gabauer would not say where the deaths have occurred.
“It’s not fair to the families, it’s not fair to the businesses” to say where the deaths occurred, Mr. Gabauer said.
Mr. Gabauer said the state’s lower figure may be because the state was not updating the number of deaths over the weekend as it was with the number of positive cases that are sent electronically to a system the state manages.
“The state doesn’t work on the weekends, but I do,” he said.
Mr. Gabauer would not say if any of the additional death cases occurred at the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. It has previously reported five.
He said he is confident that both his office and the health care system are prepared for a surge in cases.
Beaver County has long had a “mass fatality plan” in place, he said, that dates back decades to when the plan revolved around a catastrophic, one-time event like the crash of USAir Flight 427 in 1994 that killed 132 people in Beaver County.
But seeing what was happening with COVID-19 deaths in other regions of the country a month ago, Mr. Gabauer said his office amended that plan to deal with a more sustained surge in deaths in his county.
At the Kane Glen Hazel assisted living center, 18 residents and 11 workers have contracted the virus as of Monday.
A staff member had previously tested positive at the facility on March 25.
Two days later, on March 27, two residents tested positive, the facility had reported.
Kane Community Living Center is owned and operated by Allegheny County.
Kane’s other three locations, in Scott, McKeesport and Ross, have also tested more than 30 residents and staff without a positive result so far.
A male resident at one of Citizen Care’s group homes in McKees Rocks has tested positive for COVID-19, the organization confirmed in a statement on Tuesday.
The confirmation comes two days after the man had been hospitalized at Allegheny General Hospital, and it is not known how he contracted the virus, the statement said.
Citizen Care, which operates several group homes in Allegheny County, is a subsidiary of Partners for Quality, which provides oversight for organizations that serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The case is Citizen Care’s first among staff and residents of its facilities.
“Partners For Quality and its family of agencies consider the safety and well-being of people they support, and staff, a top priority,” the statement said. “The organizations will remain vigilant in adhering to all directives covering hygiene, social distancing and quarantine.”
Concordia at Villa St. Joseph in Baden announced Tuesday that a staff member has tested positive and is quarantined at home.
Concordia also said the staff member last worked March 24 and displayed no symptoms at the time.
The facility said it has investigated to determine who the employee contacted at the time and has notified residents, families and other staff.
Concordia at Villa St. Joseph, part of Concordia Lutheran Ministries, plans to continue to suspend visitation and isolate residents as a precaution until April 12, when it will re-evaluate.