John Minchillo—AP
‘Under Siege’: Brooklyn Nursing Home Reports 55 Deaths
(NEW YORK) — As residents at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, began dying in late February from a coronavirus outbreak that would eventually take 43 lives, there was little sign of trouble at the Cobble Hill Health Center, a 360-bed facility in an upscale section of Brooklyn.
Its Facebook page posted a cheerful story encouraging relatives to quiz their aging loved ones about their lives, and photos of smiling third graders at a nearby school making flower arrangements for residents.
That quickly changed. By the middle of March, the CEO began sending increasingly alarmed emails about banning visitors, screening staff, confining residents, wiping down all surfaces, and having all-hands-on-deck meetings to prepare everyone for the coming coronavirus “freight train.”
“I’ll be darned if I’m not going to do everything in my power to protect them,” Donny Tuchman wrote before things got worse. More than 100 staffers, nearly a third of the workforce, went out sick. Those left began wearing garbage bags because of a shortage of protective gear. Not a single resident has been able to get tested for the virus to this day.
Now listed with 55 deaths it can only assume were caused by COVID-19, among the most of any such facility in the country, Cobble Hill Health Center has become yet another glaring example of the nation’s struggle to control the rapid spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes that care for the most frail and vulnerable.
Cobble Hill’s grim toll surpasses not only Kirkland’s but the 49 deaths at a home outside of Richmond, Virginia, 48 dead at a veteran’s home in Holyoke, Mass., and five other homes in outer boroughs of New York City that have at least 40 deaths each.
Out of an Associated Press tally of 8,003 nursing home deaths nationwide, a third of them are in New York state.
AP interviews with friends and relatives who have visited the Cobble Hill Health Center in recent weeks, as well as the home’s own statements, paint a picture of a facility overwhelmed and unequipped to deal with its coronavirus outbreak, with shortages of staff, personal protective equipment and the availability of reliable testing.
“They were under siege,” said Daniel Arbeeny, who brought his ailing 88-year-old father from a hospital to the home in late March. “They were doing the best they could, as far as we could tell at arm’s length, under siege.”
Tuchman told the AP on Sunday that he believes many other homes have more deaths than Cobble Hill but his has been singled out for its honesty. He said it responded to the state’s voluntary survey with cases in which it was “possible” COVID-19 could be a factor, since his home wasn’t able to test any due to the lack of available kits. He also said he reported 50 deaths, not 55, though the state repeated that tally Sunday.
“There’s been a lot of lip service about how vulnerable nursing homes have been, and everyone has the best intentions, but it didn’t materialize,” Tuchman said. “The PPE didn’t materialize, the staffing surge didn’t materialize, the testing didn’t materialize. … How did we expect this not to spread?”
Though Tuchman doesn’t know for sure how the virus got into Cobble Hill, he noted there has been a parade of paramedics and staffers allowed into the building each day who were screened with health questions and temperature checks, not enough to keep out those who are sick but not showing symptoms.
Soon after news broke of Cobble Hill’s death toll, Steven Vince went there to talk to administrators about his recently passed uncle, whose death certificate listed him possibly having COVID. An administrator told him they were confident his uncle did not have the virus.
“It’s very surprising because I don’t think anyone from the facility contacted us to tell us anything like this or basically bring this to our attention in any way,” he said.
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ADDITIONAL STORIES REGARDING REQUESTS FOR HELP FROM COBBLE HILL:
Brooklyn nursing home ravaged by 55 deaths, most in New York during pandemic
“Right here, we are doing it alone,” Cobble Hill Health Center CEO Donny Tuchman shouted Monday to cheering neighbors outside the nursing home in Brooklyn, New York. “These people right here,” he said, pointing to the line of the health care staff members in full protective gear who’d walked out of the facility to accept the applause.
It had been yet another challenging day at Cobble Hill. A report by the New York State Health Department listed 55 deaths presumably caused by the coronavirus at the facility since the outbreak began, the highest toll at any senior care center in New York.
The CEO’s impromptu pep rally was just one way Cobble Hill spent the day pushing back, insisting that the 364-bed nonprofit community had had little help from the city, the state or the federal government.
“These people are deserving of everything that there is in this world,” Tuchman said of his workers. “These people right here.”
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Cobble Hill said in a statement seeking to put the crisis in context: “Our resident population is, by definition, fragile and vulnerable and almost all have significant underlying health issues. Any deaths we’ve reported have been based on the possibility of Covid-19 being a factor. Because Covid-19 testing in skilled nursing facilities has been extremely difficult to obtain, there is no uniform measure to determine conclusively whether Covid-19 was a contributing factor in a resident’s death.”
A spokesman added that the facility has made repeated requests for more resources, like test kits and personal protective equipment for its depleted staff. As many as 100 of its 350 health care workers have needed to take sick time.
The facility also tried to move some residents suspected of carrying the virus to the military field hospital set up at New York City’s Jacob Javits Convention Center. The response to those requests, Cobble Hill says, was that the area’s main hospitals were more overwhelmed and a higher priority for relief.
‘Under siege’: Overwhelmed Brooklyn care home tolls 55 dead
Tuchman told the AP on Sunday that he believes many other homes have more deaths than Cobble Hill but his has been singled out for its honesty. He said it responded to the state’s voluntary survey with cases in which it was “possible” Covid-19 could be a factor, since his home wasn’t able to test any due to the lack of available kits. He also said he reported 50 deaths, not 55, though the state repeated that tally Sunday.
“There’s been a lot of lip service about how vulnerable nursing homes have been, and everyone has the best intentions, but it didn’t materialize,” Tuchman said. “The PPE didn’t materialize. The staffing surge didn’t materialize. The testing didn’t materialize.
“How did we expect this not to spread?”
To continue reading in Crains New York Business, click here.
LOSTMESSIAH 