MANCHESTER – Township Councilman Robert Hudak is requesting that the governor’s office investigate a high number of COVID-19 cases at several long-term care facilities.
“As you are aware, long term care facilities have been acutely affected by the COVID-19 virus,” Hudak wrote in a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy. In Manchester, “several of our long-term care facilities appear to have been hard hit. To the public, the numbers appear particularly high in relation to other long-term care facilities.”
Hudak’s letter added that “many residents have friends and loved ones in these facilities. These patients are our residents and we need to ensure that they are receiving the best possible care.”
“The Center for Disease Control and Protection has established guidelines to curb the introduction of the virus into these facilities,” he added in his letter.
Hudak said in his May 13 letter that in order to protect “our residents in these facilities, I request that the state perform an inspection to ensure that all our residents are receiving appropriate care.
“I am not intimating that these facilities are doing anything improper, however, to the public it appears that some facilities may not be following the required procedures/protocol and an investigation will address the public’s concerns,” Hudak said in the conclusion of his letter.
The councilman said in a phone interview on May 14, that “we have a lot of residents that live in those nursing homes in town and we have a lot of family members whose parents live in these nursing homes in town and there is a lot of concern out there.
“You can’t see someone or talk to them on a regular basis. If mom is in there you can’t see mom because mom is quarantined,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of folks talk to me about the situation.”
The councilman said his letter to the governor was a way of being proactive. “I am not saying the nursing homes are doing anything wrong. It isn’t picking on anyone it is just saying, ‘do some testing make sure everyone is doing the procedures properly. Give everyone some peace of mind and that we are doing everything we can do,’” Hudak said.
State Heath Commissioner Judith Persichilli however, signed an Executive Directive on May 12, requiring all long-term care facilities in the state to implement testing of staff and residents for the virus by May 26.
This Executive Directive provides for retesting of individuals who test negative within 3-7 days to detect those with newly developed infection, and further retesting in according with CDC guidance.
Long-term care facilities also have to amend their outbreak plans to include plans for testing and retesting staff and residents, cohorting of residents who test positive, policies for excluding staff who test positive, and timeframes and requirements for returning to work in accordance with CDC and Department of Health recommendations.
Testing of vulnerable residents in long-term care facilities is essential to control the spread of COVID-19 and to identify asymptomatic but positive residents so they can be cohorted based on test results, the state said. Testing health care providers and support staff in all long-term facilities is critical because they may be unknowingly contributing to the spread of COVID-19.
Persichilli said, “we want to collaborate with long-term care facilities to protect their residents and staff. We all have a role to play in this.”
There are 90,000 residents in nursing homes and Assisted Living facilities, according to the state. Nearly 26,000 positive cases have been reported from these facilities. The Executive Directive applies to licensed nursing homes, assisted living facilities, dementia care homes, residential health care facilities and comprehensive personal care homes.
