APRIL
17, 2020
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Elaine Renoire – Elaine@abusiveguardianships.com
Gretchen Hammond – gretchenrachelhammond@gmail.com
NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION TO STOP GUARDIANSHIP ABUSE (NASGA) CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE FEDERAL AND
STATE TRACKING AND TRANSPARENCY OF COVID-19 NURSING FACILITY CASES NATIONWIDE
AND FOR STATE GOVERNORS TO REJECT REQUESTS BY FACILITY TRADE GROUPS FOR CIVIL
LAWSUIT IMMUNITY.
As
both the number of individuals infected with Coronavirus and the nationwide
death toll continues to climb, one set of statistics remains obscure: the
number of residents in US nursing and assisted living facilities who have
contracted the virus and those who have succumbed to it.
An
April 13, 2020 report from USA
Today
estimated that “at least 2,300 facilities in 37 states have reported positive
cases of COVID-19. More than 3,000 residents have died. The incomplete picture
of what is currently known about COVID-19 in nursing homes comes from a
patchwork of data collected at the local and state level.”
Families
who have reached out to nursing and assisted living facilities in order to
determine if their loved ones are safe have received no answer and, instead,
have had to rely on local media outlets across the country in order to
determine if a facility has any cases of coronavirus. The majority of
those reports paint a horrific picture.
After
ten deaths at an Athens, Georgia nursing facility were reported by
a local media outlet,
County Commissioner Russell Edwards said “I am extremely frustrated that it
would take a whistleblower talking to an Atlanta TV station for us in Athens to
get information about these 10 fatalities. I can’t yet wrap my head around why
this information was withheld from us.”
Some
nursing facilities are struggling to remain full staffed and those workers
are struggling for PPE. But even though their employees are on the front
lines of caring for our most vulnerable, a lack of transparency seems to fall
squarely on the heads of facility management and/or a complete lack of
corporate oversight. As caregivers at a Detroit nursing facility told the
Guardian.
“Management refused to tell them when a patient tested positive for COVID-19 or
was suspected of having the virus.”
Indeed,
in states like Florida, facility administration priorities are more focused
upon avoiding the consequences of civil action. A state trade group asked
Governor Ron DeSantis to provide nursing
homes with sovereign immunity to protect them against negligence lawsuits.
According
to the Miami Herald, while the move was painted as an attempt to shield their
workers, it is “Just the latest ratcheting up of a long campaign by the
elder-care industry for protection against negligence suits” and that Governors
in Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New
Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are considering similar requests.
It
is inexcusable that some nursing and assisted living administrators have been concealing
coronavirus outbreaks in their facilities putting their residents in danger and
leaving their families in the dark.
While
States like New Jersey, Ohio and
Connecticut have taken
action
by ordering nursing facilities to disclose COVID-19 cases, those with higher
numbers of vulnerable individuals such as Florida still refuse to
make publicly known which facilities have cases of COVID-19.
According
to President Trump’s plan to reopen
America,
a top priority is to “protect the health and safety of those living and working
in high-risk facilities (e.g. senior care facilities).
NASGA
calls upon the Center for Disease Control to begin tracking outbreaks of the
virus in nursing and assisted living facilities nationwide, for federal health
regulators to mandate complete transparency from nursing facilities to families
and staff about suspected COVID-19 cases and for individual States to demand
that facilities immediately disclose to whether or not there has been an
outbreak among their residents and what preventative and containment measures
are being taken for both their populations and their caregivers.
Furthermore,
NASGA calls upon State governors to reject requests by nursing facility trade
groups for sovereign immunity from civil action. Without stronger federal and
state oversight, these suits are the only recourse families have for the
maltreatment and neglect of their loved ones. As USA Today
noted,
prior to the pandemic, 75 percent of U.S. nursing homes “have been cited for
failing to properly monitor and control infections in the past three years.”
The
COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare numerous inequities in our society. While NASGA
applauds the nursing facility workers and volunteers on the frontlines of the
fight against this virus, it does not help them, their residents and their
families to keep those lines in the shadows.
The
tragedy in our nation’s nursing facilities has clearly demonstrated that our
most vulnerable seniors and developmentally disabled individuals deserve
better.
The National Association to Stop
Guardianship Abuse is
a non-profit, grassroots organization. Over the last 12 years the organization
has grown into a leading, national voice for reform, accountability and an end
to the abuse of America’s most vulnerable who are placed under the guardianship
system.
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