With new directives placing strict limits on visitors to nursing homes and many assisted living facilities taking similar precautions, friends and families of residents living in long-term care facilities are using creative ways to stay in touch with their loved ones.
Our friends at Consumer Voice offer some creative ideas and best practices for staying connected during the Pandemic:
Officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) are reporting at least 46 people, including both residents and staff, have tested positive for coronavirus at a DuPage county nursing home. This is the first coronavirus outbreak in a long-term care facility in the state. Chicago’s WGN9 reported the first confirmed test of a Willowbrook resident over the weekend by state health officials. Only days later, the virus moved quickly to others at the Chateau Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, located in the 7000 block of South Madison Street in Willowbrook. Thirty-three of the cases are residents, and 13 are staff members. Public health officials said other residents are now isolated in another area of the facility as officials expect additional positive tests to come back. Willowbrook is a southwestern suburb of Chicago.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent out a new set of rules for nursing home facilities on Friday, March 13. The strict guidance says that all visitors and non-essential health care personnel should be restricted, except for certain compassionate care situations, such as an end-of-life situation. In addition, long-term care staff should start being screened for symptoms before starting their shift.
As of March 19, public health officials in Illinois have recognized four long-term care facilities in the Chicago area reporting COVID-19 cases. This includes a possible coronavirus outbreak inside a nursing home in west suburban Willowbrook involving 46 people, including 33 residents and 13 staff.
As public health officials wait on additional test results to come back related to Willowbrook, two residents have tested positive for COVID-19 in Evanston at Three Crowns Park, there is one confirmed case at Admiral at the Lake facility in Chicago’s Edgewater, and a staff member at the Church Creek Senior Living Center in Arlington Heights is also infected. Nursing home advocates and family members of residents are only left to wonder how the viral spread might make its way into other facilities around the state.
Levin & Perconti founder and attorney Steven Levin joined ABC7 to talk about how an already understaffed long-term care system continues to weaken the care of our most vulnerable citizens due to COVID-19.
The for-profit nursing home chain ManorCare went bankrupt with $7.1 billion in debt in 2018 over neglect and Medicare fraud allegations. The group operates about 15 facilities located throughout the Chicago area, primarily under the Heartland, ManorCare Health Services and Arden Courts brands. Prior to the bankruptcy, the chain was owned by the Carlyle Group, who bought the real estate in 2007 for $6.1 million. According to the Washington Post, the chain couldn’t make the $472 million a year rent payment, so instead, left its financial ruin to the takeover company, Quality Care Properties. Residents were found neglected, uncared for and living with painful bedsores and fall injuries, and without barely enough staff. An analysis of violation reports and records from the Illinois Department of Health shows:
On Tuesday, March 15, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the first death from the new coronavirus in Illinois. The woman had close contact with another person infected with the virus. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) said she did have an underlying health condition but was not a resident of a nursing home facility. Although a total of 160 cases of COVID-19 have now been tracked in the state, including 22 cases at Willowbrook nursing home in DuPage County impacting 18 residents and four employees. Chicago’s WGN9 reported the first resident’s confirmed test over the weekend by state health officials. The resident is now in critical condition. The virus has since moved quickly to others at the Chateau Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, located in the 7000 block of South Madison Street in Willowbrook.
As the country is wrapped in a global pandemic never witnessed before by many, it’s important to make predictions about which groups of people will be most affected by coronavirus, or COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that older adults carry the characteristics that put them at greater risk of illness and death related to the virus. These adults may have limitations which impair their ability to respond to an infectious disease or emergency, such as:
I have a loved one in a nursing home and I’m concerned about COVID-19 exposure. What should I do?
The first step is to call the director of nursing at your family member’s facility and ask about the steps they are taking to protect residents and staff. By this point, all facilities should have a written policy and action plan available for distribution. If your facility does not, request that they create it as soon as possible, and follow up until they do. Facilities should already be following longstanding CDC guidelines for infection prevention. Here are some questions that can guide your inquiry into whether they currently comply with the rules: https://www.cdc.gov/longtermcare/pdfs/factsheet-core-elements-10-infection-prevention-questions.pdf
By now it seems self-evident that the nursing homes and assisted living centers housing many of our elderly and most vulnerable citizens are uniquely susceptible to outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
We know that the disease is particularly dangerous for older people. We understand intuitively that a site where older people — some of whom cycle in and out of hospitals, bringing germs back and forth — live in close quarters, with shared spaces and resources, faces heightened risk for infection and contagion.
Managing the care of more than 2.2 million people living in U.S. long-term care settings, many with underlying health complications, without the spread of rapidly growing pathogens, is difficult and can cause severe complications to residents. And during a viral outbreak, such as the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19), nursing homes will become even more challenged. The new virus is thought to spread primarily via droplets in the air, similar to other respiratory viruses, such as influenza, and has been identified in more than 85,000 people worldwide and led to nearly 3,000 deaths, said officials from the World Health Organization.
Unfortunately, an outbreak of the novel contagious illness has become known at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, near Seattle. The event has left four residents dead and many others – including care staff – hospitalized. Also, of the nursing home’s 108 residents and 180 staff members, more than 50 have shown signs of possible COVID-19 infections, officials said. In Illinois, the coronavirus disease should be especially worrisome for nursing homes. In the final state inspection report of 2019, more than 100 facilities were cited for various violations of the Nursing Home Care Act, a statute that provides nursing home residents and their families with the assurance that proper and safe care will be received.
Police in Florida have arrested William Hawkins, 47, after being charged with breaking into the Tiffany Hall Nursing & Rehab Center in Port St. Lucie and smothering a 95-year-old resident to death with a pillow. The man matched the description provided by staff members and was also listed as a visitor for the victim. The murder happened in January 2020.
The man reportedly confessed to the crime while speaking to his estranged sister in jail and explained that the nursing home resident had written a book about him that upset him. According to The Daytona Beach News-Journal, Hawkins answered “yes” when asked if he smothered the victim and confessed to planning the killing for years.
Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog