Which elder-care facilities have COVID-19? Florida won't say, filling families with dread

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https://news.yahoo.com/elder-care-facilities-covid-19-222624260.html

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article241996231.html

Miami Herald April 14, 2020

A devoted grandson learns his grandmother died alone last weekend. The family was never told she had fallen ill. A fragile mother is moved from her room so the senior home can expand its “quarantine wing.” Her daughter was told no one has tested positive for the coronavirus.

A family repeatedly asks if anyone has tested positive at the home of their grandfather only to receive cheerful texts that avoid the question and say: “We’re all doing great!”

Barred from visiting their relatives in the midst of a pandemic, people with relatives in nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the state say they are also being deprived of information that could reassure them that their loved ones are safe.


Kristen Knapp, spokeswoman for the Florida Health Care Association, the trade group representing most nursing homes in Florida, said “we’re recommending and encouraging [the homes] to disclose” information to relatives of residents but that it’s “the decision of the Department of Health” to release the data to the broader public. The health department has refused to share it — or to tell the Herald the legal justification for not doing so.

“Families should know so that informed decisions can be made about care,’’ said Bea Coker. She lives in Lake City, and her father is in a local nursing home. She’s been told everyone is safe there.

“I assumed all nursing homes would want to keep the public informed,” she said.

On Tuesday, the health department reported the aggregate number of residents and staff at long-term care facilities who have tested positive for COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus: 1,179 — up 217 cases since Monday. Most of the cases are in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, but alarming hot spots have metastasized in three North Florida counties: Suwanee, Clay and Leon.

Which facilities are those?

The state won’t say.

The state is facing a legal challenge from a coalition of news organizations. Begun as a lawsuit drafted by the Miami Herald, the challenge has drawn support from several other news media, including Gannett’s Florida publications, the Sun Sentinel, the Orlando Sentinel, the Tampa Bay Times, The New York Times, Scripps’ five Florida TV stations, and the First Amendment Foundation. The list may grow further.

Helen Aguirre Ferré, spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, told the Herald two weeks ago when the records request was initially spurned by the governor, the health department and the Agency for Health Care Administration that DeSantis would continue to study the issue.

“We’re still reviewing it,” Ferré said Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, an attorney for AHCA, which regulates elder-care facilities, informed the Herald’s law firm, Thomas & LoCicero, that the records request is still under “review.” The request was submitted March 23.

“Anyone with a relative in an elder-care facility has a right to know if their loved ones are at risk so they can make an informed decision about their care,” said Aminda Marqués González, Miami Herald editor and publisher.

On Tuesday, one of the largest nursing home chains in the nation, Pruitt Health Care, broke with the state’s blockade on information and announced it would post on its websites all positive cases among staff and residents for each of its homes, including three in Florida.

When asked why other facilities don’t do something similar, Knapp, of the trade association, said, “that’s their decision.”

Advocates for the residents and their families say the state must do better.