Official: County failing to keep nursing home staff, residents safe
Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner blasted the county Wednesday for failing to protect residents and workers in nursing homes as the number of positive COVID-19 cases at its Glen Hazel facility continued to climb.
“Since cases began to surface in Allegheny County, my office has received extremely concerning reports from Kane Centers employees that common-sense precautions against spread of the virus are not being followed. Our attempts to gain explanation or elaboration from Kane officials have not gotten responses,” Ms. Wagner said in a news release Wednesday.
“While the County has decried ‘rumors’ circulating about virus cases and response, the best way to prevent this is by providing clear and timely facts about what’s happening on the ground,” she added. “What measures are being taken in public facilities with perhaps the greatest potential locally to become a hotbed of this virus is vital public knowledge, which not only should not be withheld but which should have been proactively shared all along.”
The county reported Tuesday that the number of residents who have tested positive at the county’s Kane Community Living Centers’ Glen Hazel facility jumped to 18 cases, and the number of employees there who have tested positive jumped to 11.
The staff number increased to 13 later Tuesday, as detailed on the county’s website.
The Kane Centers include three other facilities — in Scott, McKeesport and Ross — but no employees nor residents have tested positive at any of them so far, despite 33 tests among residents and staff across three locations.
County spokeswoman Amie Downs said in an emailed statement Wednesday Ms. Wagner’s news release “is insulting, unproductive and unconscionable.”
“We are in the middle of a crisis here and focused on doing everything we can to make sure that our residents and staff are safe,” Ms. Downs added in her statement. “The dedicated, frontline healthcare workers at Kane are working tirelessly to protect people’s health and save lives. They treat our residents as if they are their family and we are immensely grateful for the service that they are providing to this county. COVID-19 and its impact is constantly evolving and the county, and the Kane Community Care Centers, have all hands on deck so we can be responsive and adapt quickly to all developments and information.”
Ms. Wagner said in an interview later Wednesday Ms. Downs’ response “is just like their other press releases on the problems with the jail and county workers: They don’t answer the questions.
“They should understand that the most important thing in a crisis is communication and a willingness to receive feedback from people on the front lines,” she said. “This is not a time for pettiness and ignoring questions.”
In her news release, she said she sent a letter on Tuesday to County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, County Manager William McKain and Kane Centers Executive Director Dennis Biondo “requesting clear information on how health guidelines are being met and how employee concerns have been remediated.”
Ms. Wagner said she sent out the release because of concerns from Kane employees about how the county has been lax in protecting workers and residents.
“It has been kind of a snowballing effect,” she said.
After the first Kane resident tested positive, she said some Kane employees told her the staffers who worked directly with the resident weren’t initially told about their possible close contact with the virus.
“I was concerned that the county wasn’t properly tracing who might have had contact,” she said.
As more positive cases were found in Glen Hazel, employees told her they did not have proper protective equipment, including face masks. Even those who were working in a unit where positive COVID-19 patients were isolated said they lacked proper equipment.
Employees also told her some employees who did work with the infected residents were taking smoke breaks and mingling with employees who did not work with the infected residents, “potentially spreading [the disease] further,” she said.
On top of that, she said she was told even the four Kane buildings’ hairdressers were told to come to work, even though they were not allowed to cut residents’ hair anymore, similar to other non-Kane county employees who were being told to come to work even though their jobs were not “essential.”
“That’s the theme out of the county,” Ms. Wagner said. “Make everyone come to work, especially low-wage workers, even though many managers were not.
“We’re receiving consistent feedback that the standards put out by our own health department aren’t being followed at our county facilities,” she said.