One Greenwood nursing home has the third highest death count in Mississippi from COVID-19. Another has been dealing with a more serious outbreak than its earlier disclosures had indicated.
Those revelations were included in the Mississippi State Department of Health’s first release of information identifying nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that have active infections among residents or staff of the novel coronavirus.
Although the virus produces mild or moderate symptoms in most people, it is particularly hard on residents of nursing homes, who are elderly or in poor health and have close interaction with their caregivers. Residents of long-term care facilities account for more than half of all deaths in the state.
The Department of Health had for months refused to provide the names of facilities with outbreaks, releasing instead countywide breakdowns of cases and deaths among residents.
Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer, had said he didn’t want to stigmatize the facilities and make it difficult for them to hire employees.
However, after losing last week a public records lawsuit that challenged the agency’s withholding of the information, the Department of Health late Wednesday released a list of 115 long-term care facilities, including 94 nursing homes, that had active outbreaks of the disease as of Tuesday. The Health Department said it would update the list daily, although Thursday’s update had not been posted as of early evening.
Greenwood’s Crystal Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center has experienced 16 COVID-19 deaths among its residents. Only a nursing home in Hattiesburg and one in Neshoba County have had more. Crystal Rehab alone accounts for nearly half of the 36 deaths that have occurred in Leflore County from the virus.
Also, according to the Department of Health, the 110-bed nursing home has had 61 residents and 24 employees test positive at some point for COVID-19.
The outbreak is significantly larger than the nursing home’s parent company, Nexion Health, has acknowledged. On its website, it shows 40 residents having tested positive for COVID-19, including 26 who it says are now recovered.
A request to a Nexion spokesman to explain the discrepancy was not immediately answered.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health reported that five residents of Golden Age nursing home have died from the respiratory disease. Golden Age had not previously disclosed any deaths in its public comments on the outbreak.
Nay Reed, the administrator at Golden Age, said the 150-bed nursing home had not been announcing deaths attributed to COVID-19 because of concerns that such disclosure might violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that protects patient privacy.
“Golden Age has been very forthcoming in sharing the number of positive COVID-19 cases, but we have not been giving out information relating to the number of deaths until now, because those details are much more easily matched to an individual,” said Reed.
“We have always taken HIPAA laws seriously, and in a small town like Greenwood even very generalized information can be traced back to a specific individual.”
Golden Age, through Tuesday, has had 28 residents and 14 employees test positive for the virus at some point.
Reed also suggested that COVID-19 might not have been the exact cause of death for all five residents who died. “The deaths of the residents may have been as a result of underlying causes, but because they had tested positive, those deaths are counted in the COVID-19 data,” she said.
No other long-term care facilities in either Leflore or Carroll counties have an active outbreak, according to the Department of Health, although one nursing home says that’s not accurate.
Vaiden Community Living Center has seen a steady decline in COVID-19 cases, but it still has 15 active cases among residents, Rachel Ethridge, a spokeswoman for its management company, said Thursday. It has no active cases among employees, a marked improvement from when almost two dozen staff members had to go into quarantine because of the virus.
The Vaiden nursing home has been the locus of most of Carroll County’s 11 deaths from COVID-19. Seven of its residents died from the coronavirus while in the nursing home, two others were discharged to the hospital, where they later died, and another was discharged to another facility and died there.
There are at least 11 other long-term care facilities with outbreaks that the Department of Health acknowledged were not put on the itemized list. Liz Sharlot, a spokeswoman for the agency, said they were not included “due to definition.”
• Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
The list was provided by the Mississippi State Department of Health and includes 115 facilities with active outbreaks as of June 2, 2020.
