Woonsocket's Oakland Grove Designated Coronavirus-Specialty Home

WOONSOCKET, RI — Oakland Grove Health Care Center will begin receiving new coronavirus patients cleared to leave the hospital as the state's second COVID-19 specialty nursing home.

Dr. James McDonald, of the Rhode Island Department of Health, made the announcement during Gov. Gina Raimondo's daily news conference on Sunday. McDonald said the COVID-posititve patients will reside in a unit of the nursing home separate from long-term residents.

Oak Hill Health in Pawtucket is the other COVID-specialty nursing home in RI.

"Thee two nursing homes have specialized resources and abilities to help take care of these folks," McDonald said on Sunday. "It helps them to do the highest level of care possible."

McDonald said that adding Oakland Grove as a second COVID-specialty home to care for those no longer in need of acute care will allow hospitals to be able to free up more beds for new patients. Patients who test positive for COVID-19 at other nursing homes will remain at those facilities.

"We are working as much as we can with nursing homes to help manage the crisis," McDonald said. "We know this pandemic has been hardest for nursing homes. We're working with them to enhance the (access to) personal-protection equipment and we're doing a lot of testing. Whenever we have cases at nursing homes we test the staff and the residents, and we put them on a schedule to keep it under control."

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