Nursing homes that care for Kentucky’s most vulnerable residents are quickly becoming the next battleground in the state’s coronavirus outbreak — and some say they don’t have the weapons they need to fight it.
Written by Bailey Loosemore of the Courier-Journal
Facilities statewide are running short on masks, gloves and gowns that help protect against the deadly virus. And many homes don’t have the tools or the authority to test residents for COVID-19 — including those who are coming from a hospital.
“If you send someone into a skilled nursing facility and they’re COVID-19 positive, you’re pretty much guaranteeing people are going to die,” said Betsy Johnson, president of the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities and Kentucky Center for Assisted Living.
“It’s just not fair to those elders who are sitting there, living their life.”
As of Wednesday, 25 of Kentucky’s 285 long-term care facilities had coronavirus cases — with 72 residents and 35 employees testing positive.
Fifteen residents have died.
Nursing homes and assisted living facilities have not had the same access to the state’s supply of personal protection equipment, or PPE, that hospitals have had, industry leaders say.
And in many cases, only their sickest residents have been transported to hospitals for testing — likely leading to an undercount of the cases, several administrators said.
Now, some in the industry are asking Gov. Andy Beshear to make senior homes a priority by testing more people who are entering nursing homes and providing the facilities with PPE.
(Cross-posted via the Kentucky Press News Service. Read the rest of the article at the Courier-Journal.)
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