They were coughing, achy, feverish. The nursing home told them to get to work. Big mistake
In the week before state health inspectors arrived, employees of the Blountstown Health and Rehabilitation Center reported for work with coughs, fever, shortness of breath, headaches, muscle aches and loss of the ability to taste.
Administrators ordered them to work anyway.
By the most recent count, 26 residents and staff were infected with the coronavirus.
Calling the nursing home “fertile ground” for the spread of the deadly contagious disease, Florida health regulators halted admissions to the 96-bed Calhoun County facility last week. The moratorium appears to be the first such restriction of a Florida nursing home since the coronavirus pandemic struck last winter.
The 13-page moratorium, dated May 7, provides a rare glimpse inside the walls of an embattled elder-care facility. As COVID-19, the illness caused by exposure to the coronavirus, has spread throughout Florida and the nation, long-term care facilities have been especially hard-hit, accounting for 43 percent of Florida’s coronavirus deaths.
The report also points to the daunting task facing state health regulators, whose job it is to protect the roughly 177,000 residents of Florida’s 700 nursing homes and 3,100 assisted living facilities — many of which have become incubators of the disease. The coronavirus has proven to be most deadly among elders and those with compromised health.
On Thursday, the AARP’s Florida director, Jeff Johnson, said in a prepared statement that nearly 80 percent of the 48 coronavirus-related deaths reported overnight in the state began as infections of either staff or residents of a long-term care facility. “When one-fiftieth of the population is suffering four-fifths of the deaths,” Johnson said of people in long-term care, “the need for action could scarcely be clearer.”
While primarily recommending widespread testing, Johnson also said: “We believe that front-line staff in these facilities should have adequate personal protective gear, the training to use it and the oversight to ensure it’s being used.”
The moratorium order accuses the Panhandle home of a laundry list of dangerous practices: housing residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus in the same rooms as patients suspected of having the disease, but not confirmed; improperly using, or reusing, personal protective gear; failing to properly isolate infected residents; and failing to screen staff for the disease.
Such practices, the order said, represent “an immediate serious danger to the public health.”
Blountstown Health’s administrator, Thomas L. McDaniel, could not be reached by a reporter Thursday.
State records show Blountstown Health has reported 14 current residents who have contracted the disease, three additional residents who were transferred out after testing positive for it, and nine staff members with coronavirus. None of the home’s residents have died from COVID-19, records say.
One of the nursing home’s wards, the 400 Wing, has become an isolation area for known and suspected COVID-19 patients, the AHCA report said. Signs there warn of the danger and instruct staff to use “airborne precautions.”
Individual rooms, however, don’t have disposal areas for protective gear, and staffers hung gowns from hooks in the hallway and then reused them as they moved from room-to-room.
One employee was observed failing to dispose of a protective gown after leaving the room of a confirmed COVID-19 patient and then entering the room of a patient whose status had yet to be determined. “The nursing assistant indicated that she had not been trained or instructed to change [gowns] when going between rooms,” the report said.
On May 7, during the AHCA survey, inspectors noted that in three separate rooms of the isolation ward, residents were sharing space with other patients who, while suspected of having the disease, had tested negative, the report said.
Two other areas of the nursing home, the 500 and 600 wings, held at least one patient known to have the disease, though “there was no signage indicating isolation or contact precautions, there was no [protective gear] available for use and the room doors were left open,” the report said.
A total of eight resident rooms throughout the nursing home housed patients with suspected COVID-19 during the inspection, the report said. The rooms weren’t set off by warning signs, and there were no masks, gowns or other protective equipment for use by staff members entering the rooms.
Inspectors reviewed staff screening records from April 30 through May 7, the report said. The documents showed that 19 staff members from a variety of departments — including direct care, nursing, kitchen and housekeeping — had reported for work with many of the symptoms of coronavirus: coughs, fevers, breathing problems, body aches and headaches.
The employees “were nonetheless directed to report for service within the facility,” the report said.
“One of these individuals,” the report said, “a licensed practical nurse, was sent home on May 4, 2020, by representatives of Florida’s Department of Health after the staff member had served residents” for about four hours.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 4:33 PM.