Beverly Mayor Gets PPE For Troubled Nursing Home

BEVERLY, MA —CareOne at Essex Park is crediting Mayor Mike Cahill and the Beverly Emergency Management team with "supporting and assisting the facility" to secure personal protection equipment for nurses.

"There is nothing better for the well-being and morale of staff at the center than the type of outpouring of support and love we’ve seen from Mayor Cahill, the City of Beverly and local residents," Brenna House, administrator of CareOne at Essex Park, said in a news release.

This week, Patch reported on equipment and staffing shortages at the facility. Eighteen patients have died after contracting COVID-19 at the facility, but families believe it is more and say CareOne had kept new coronavirus infection rates artificially low by discouraging staff from getting tested for the new coronavirus and sending patients with symptoms to area hospitals.

On Friday, CareOne sent a statement addressing questions about how it had handled its coronavirus response.

"Federal HIPPA and Massachusetts’ patient privacy laws prevent us from commenting about the specifics of any patient’s care, but CareOne at Essex Park has and continues to operate under direct guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), which remains in daily communication with our administrative team," CareOne said.

The full statement from CareOne is at the bottom of this story.

The news release sent by CareOne Thursday was to announce that one of its patients had recovered from COVID-19 and had been discharged. The news relese included a video of Beverly resident Janice O’Brien, the first CareOne at Essex Parkpatient to recover from COVID-19, walking out of the facility as staff cheered.

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Steve Morong, whose father has been in and out of CareOne since December, said he was speaking with an attorney to consider options after his father tested positive for COVID-19. Morong's father had been sent to Beverly Hospital when he first showed symptoms on April 19, but the test came back negative, and he was returned to CareOne. A test this week came back positive, but Morong said CareOne did not call him.

"They weren’t going to tell me he tested positive until I asked," Morong said. "And I asked why I wasn’t called and...they told me they don’t have to call me because I’m only an emergency contact and he’s of sound mind."

Morong, who has not seen his father since CareOne stopped allowing visitors at all of its facilities on March 12, is one of several patients' family members who said they have filed complaints with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The New Jersey-based company operates more than 70 nursing homes and assisted living facilities, most of which are in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia.

"He has serious underlying medical conditions, so he probably won’t make it through this if he ends up in the hospital," Morong said. "What they are doing is not ok. The state or someone needs to step in."

CareOne at Essex Park's May 1 statement to Beverly Patch:

CareOne empathizes deeply with every family that loses a loved one to this insidious virus. As we always stress, CareOne residents and their loved ones are real people who become a part of our family. We mourn their losses, celebrate their positive outcomes and always do our best to care for them and treat them as their families would.

Federal HIPPA and Massachusetts’ patient privacy laws prevent us from commenting about the specifics of any patient’s care, but CareOne at Essex Park has and continues to operate under direct guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), which remains in daily communication with our administrative team.

Across our system, CareOne has confronted the novel coronavirus head-on, developing clinical protocols that allowed our centers to become COVID-capable care units. Using these protocols, CareOne continues to proactively test patients, screening at higher levels than CDC guidelines. Earlier this month testing was undertaken in coordination with resources provided by the Massachusetts National Guard, which ensure prompt lab processing capacity of test kits.

Further, our protocols and procedures are designed to ensure daily communication with families, residents and employees. Families have around-the-clock access to information about their relatives through our facility’s dedicated hotline.

A local hospital reported the first Covid-positive test of a resident at center on March 31. The team at CareOne at Essex Park moved immediately to segregate patients who displayed coronavirus symptoms in a newly created Covid unit. Thankfully, many of our residents and patients who tested positive continue to recover and the center was thrilled to recently discharge the first person who fully recovered from the ordeal.

CareOne is fortunate to have access to the company’s highly skilled Infectious Disease physician who works closely with our team to mitigate risks to patients and staff and help our organization provide excellent treatment options based on the most recent research and science.

In keeping with patient’s privacy rights, CareOne’s ability to communicate with families is directed by formal designation of proxy representatives. CareOne at Essex Park has consistently communicated with all who were selected by residents and patients as proxies or specifically authorized to receive communications. Every family receives a daily text message that update the status of Covid-positive cases at the center.

Additional efforts to communicate with family representatives include leaving multiple voice mails, sending multiple email or text messages, and in some cases, hours of research needed to identify accurate contact information whenever patient records are incomplete or out-of-date. We are not aware of a single circumstance where a designated proxy was not contacted as needed.

CareOne’s protocol for notification of family members designated by patients includes (1) telephone call from on-duty staff whenever a patient or resident tests Covid-positive, (2) telephone call from on-duty staff whenever a patient or resident experiences a significant change of condition, and (3) telephone call in cases when a patient does not survive. All family notifications are documented.

More Coronavirus Coverage On Massachusetts Patch:

• State Needs To Increase Coronavirus Testing To Safely Reopen
• CDC Data Suggest Coronavirus Death Count Higher
• Many MA Residents Still Waiting For Coronavirus Stimulus Checks
• Coronavirus Case Counts For Every Massachusetts Town (Updated April 29)

Dave Copeland writes for Patch and can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).