ALBANY – As Covid-19 numbers in New York continued to improve over the summer, the nursing home Elderwood at Amherst wrote to family members of its residents with some good news.
“We are excited to share the news that we recently discharged our last patient from our dedicated Covid-19 unit!," the Aug. 3 letter from the nursing home declared.
Two days later, bad news came in a separate letter: The nursing home’s short-lived visitation program for friends and family members of residents was being halted after a staff member tested positive for the virus.
Today, a Covid cluster has emerged at Elderwood at Amherst, with 21 residents – 36% of its current 59 residents – having tested positive in the past several weeks, according to documents obtained by The Buffalo News and interviews with people who have family among the facility’s residents.
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Elderwood officials confirmed the number Friday. Test results returned Friday afternoon showed that 4 of the 21 residents have since recovered and no longer test positive for Covid. On Friday night, nursing home officials revealed one of the Covid-positive patients died earlier in the day.
Additionally, at least nine staff members have tested positive this month, according to documents and phone calls by the nursing home to family members of residents. Elderwood officials Friday said six staff members of the facility are not working and are in quarantine at home without symptoms after testing positive for the virus.
The situation facing the Amherst nursing homes comes as Western New York has seen a recent increase in confirmed Covid-19 cases.
In recent weeks, Elderwood has sent a steady stream of letters – The News has copies of seven – notifying family members about new cases involving staff or residents at the Amherst facility. A number of the letters shared the same phrase: “We know this news may be concerning.”
In a written statement Friday afternoon after inquiries from The Buffalo News, Elderwood, which operates nursing homes across Western New York and into Pennsylvania, Vermont and Rhode Island, said all residents of the Amherst facility were tested to uncover any additional cases in asymptomatic residents. “Infirmities among the elderly can make it difficult to discern definitive symptoms, therefore Elderwood, in consultation with public health officials, decided to proceed with additional testing," the company said.
Chuck Hayes, a spokesman for the nursing home, said the residents have been isolated and are closely monitored. Family members of every resident in the facility are informed when someone tests positive, and Covid patients’ families are provided additional information about their loved ones.
"We have tried to be as communicative and as transparent with our families as possible. We certainly understand their concerns and we're doing everything we can to care for the residents and keep the families informed," Hayes said.
The nursing home said its protocols also include grouping Covid-positive residents together and assigning specific care teams to avoid contamination into other parts of the facility. Beyond isolation of Covid-19 positive residents, the nursing home has also eliminated all communal activities and required full personal protection equipment – including gowns, gloves, eye protection and masks – of its staff.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has defended the state’s nursing home policies in the face of criticism over a later-revised order that required the facilities to admit people from hospitals even if they had been positive for Covid-19, on Friday announced the state’s overall Covid-19 positive rate had dropped to 0.65%, which he said was the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic.
In Western New York, however, Cuomo has raised caution flags about the percentage of Covid-19 tests that have come back positive. He sent a team of health providers to set up eight new testing sites in the area that will open on Saturday.
On Monday, Cuomo said there were Covid-19 cases at two nursing homes in the region. He said they were “identified by state-mandated testing of staff.” He did not, however, reveal the nursing homes by name.
Family members of nursing home residents say the state should be publicly naming nursing homes or assisted living facilities that see Covid-19 cases, especially given the vulnerable population who reside at them.
The first letter to family members of Elderwood at Amherst was the Aug. 5 one notifying them of a positive case among staff. It did not identify what job the person held or where he or she specifically worked.
Another letter dated Aug. 8 says two more staff members tested positive that week, and that test results were pending for 60 residents. That letter also noted that since the pandemic began, a total of five residents of the Covid-19 specialty unit had died. That center was closed in early August after caring for more than 100 patients since March.
On Aug. 18, Elderwood notified family members that four residents tested positive and that they were “strictly isolated” on the facility’s secured Dementia Memory Care Unit. A family member said Friday in an interview that automated phone calls were also received in the past week revealing more positive cases among residents, including a call last Friday in which 12 residents were said to be infected. Family members have been told the cases are, so far, confined to the one dementia unit on the facility’s second floor.
In one call, officials told family members that one resident had died this month from Covid. In a subsequent call, the automated phone message said that person’s cause of death was not Covid-19, but that the individual had tested positive for the virus.
Last month, after Cuomo eased up on a ban against nursing home visits, Elderwood began allowing visits. But it limited them to two family members who could stay for no more than 20 minutes and banned any physical contact with a resident and prohibited family members from bringing in gifts or other items from the outside. The visits then stopped in early August when the first of the staff positives surfaced.
Word of the new cases at the Amherst nursing home came as trade groups representing nursing homes and assisted living facilities on Friday urged Cuomo to relax New York’s “one-size-fits-all” mandate for once weekly testing of all nursing home staff members.
The New York State Health Facilities Association and the New York State Center for Assisted Living, which represents more than 425 facilities statewide, wants New York’s nursing home Covid-19 testing rules to align with new federal regulations.
The new federal guidance, applying to both staff and residents, would require Covid-19 testing based on a local community’s Covid positivity rate, not a broader statewide standard.
The new federal rule calls for testing once a month if a county has a Covid-19 positive rate during a one week period of under 5%.
The trade groups also requested Cuomo amend the state’s current nursing home visitation policy that bans visitors at facilities unless they are Covid-free for 28 days.
The group asked that the bar be lowered to 14 days, noting that 77% of providers statewide are unable to be open for in-person visits under the current New York rule. The group said the 28-day rule is having an “unintended consequence” of preventing health care to some people who do not want to move into a nursing home under such strict visitation policies.
