Coronavirus cases are spiking among residents and staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. They increased four-fold between May’s end and late October — even as deaths among the vulnerable also doubled, disturbing new data show. Those are the findings of Rebecca Gorges and Tamara Konetzka, University of Chicago researchers who analyzed federal….
Continue ReadingNursing homes
Caregiver staffing a key issue in shielding vulnerable in nursing facilities and in their own homes
Nursing homes put their residents at heightened health risks by scrimping on personnel costs and failing to deal with significant staffing shortfalls, especially as the coronavirus inflicted some of its highest death and infection tolls on the elderly, sick, and injured in long-term care, media investigations have found. The profit-focus by health providers is not….
Continue ReadingAs nation focused on vote tallies, coronavirus cases and deaths kept soaring
While Americans have been riveted for days about incremental shifts in election results, other confounding numbers raced ever higher and into worrisome places. Just consider these numbers: 128,000, 9.6 million plus, and 235,000 and more. “Covid, covid, covid. By the way, on Nov. 4 you won’t hear about it anymore,” President Trump asserted during his….
Continue ReadingAs virus burned through nursing homes, inspectors cleared most of infection violations
Disturbing new data shows that a much-promoted plan by federal watchdogs to protect vulnerable residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities from Covid-19 resulted in dismal outcomes, with inspectors dispatched by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services largely dismissing infection-control concerns as the deadly pandemic raged. “During the first six months of….
Continue ReadingVulnerable, especially in nursing homes, unsafe in covid’s community spread
Audiences laugh when Sancho Panza, a sage but servile character in the musical “Man of La Mancha,” observes that “whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it’s bad for the pitcher.” A paraphrase of that aphorism — regarding community spread of the coronavirus and the elderly, particularly those in nursing….
Continue ReadingFor nursing homes, a quarter lack PPE, half have infected staff, study finds
For residents of nursing homes and their loved ones, new and disturbing information has come out on long-term care facilities’ persistent failure to safeguard the vulnerable from the coronavirus that has killed tens of thousands of the institutionalized and infected hundreds of thousands of them and their caregivers. Six months after the pandemic exploded across….
Continue ReadingNevada offers key lessons in challenge to U.S. virus tests for nursing homes
The federal agency that regulates nursing homes and other long-term care facilities not only has cracked down on them with tough new requirements for coronavirus testing of their staff. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services also has flogged its plan to provide facilities with testing equipment and sample tests. While owners and operators have….
Continue ReadingMaryland adds testing and leads area in allowing nursing homes to re-open
Maryland will take the lead among states in the area in re-opening nursing homes and other long-term care facilities from months of coronavirus-related closures to family members, guests, and other visitors. Gov. Larry Hogan (shown, right) acted as the state, for the first time in months, reported that October started with zero Covid-19 fatalities and….
Continue ReadingSenate Democrats rip White House and GOP for inaction on nursing homes
The White House and Senate Republicans have failed to protect more than 1.3 million Americans in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, with persistent inaction contributing to the rising toll of Covid-19 deaths and infections among the institutionalized — months after the crisis in long-term care exploded into the public consciousness. Those are the….
Continue ReadingNursing homes’ continuing crisis inflicts big toll on residents with dementia
Even as news organizations reported that the coronavirus pandemic has taken a grievous toll on seniors institutionalized with dementia, a presidential panel on nursing home care split over common sense but limp recommendations on how the nation might reduce Covid-19’s savaging of the old, sick, and injured in long-term care facilities. The unsurprising, 180-plus pages….
Continue Reading