Over 200 healthcare workers at nursing home facilities in Dunkirk, Eden, Salamanca, and Houghton are demanding contract negotiations and better pay, after their contract ended on Dec. 31. The nursing home facilities are owned by Personal Healthcare, a company in Tarrytown New York, and the staff say they have been faced with dire situations. "I mean we are using pillowcases to clean people because there are no linens and because there are no laundry staff to clean linens and people's clothes," said LPN Sondra Lamacchia who works at the Salamanca Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. Lamacchia says that she has worked 16-hour shifts back to back for weeks.
Citing what it calls “ongoing labor struggles and financial challenges” Aultman has announced that it will cease operations at two skilled nursing facilities, including the Transitional Care Center at Aultman Woodlawn and the Community Care Center at Aultman Alliance Community Hospital. A statement from Aultman did not say how many workers would be impacted. However, a Warn notice filed with the Department of Jobs and Family Services says 56 employees at the Alliance facility will be out of work at the beginning of April. Included in the cuts are 12 registered nurses, 14 LPNs, 12 STNAs and a number of others. The notice said there are no transfer or bumping rights for the jobs and the employees are not represented by a union. A company representative said Aultman does not expect to close the entire facility.
Concerned family members and even residents of some senior living facilities across the Austin area reported they are still without power heading into Friday night. KXAN investigators have been fielding concerns about lengthy outages at several skilled nursing and assisted living facilities that house older and often medically-vulnerable people. Austin Energy said it prioritizes power restoration at these facilities, along with other critical locations such as hospitals and 911 call centers, but a spokesperson told KXAN Friday night they still had critical locations that had not been restored. The spokesperson explained these outages are complex for Austin Energy crews. For example, these facilities may be located in areas that need multiple repairs. He could not give KXAN updates about specific locations and facilities.
In connection with the Biden-Harris administration’s stated goals of improving safety, transparency, accountability and quality in nursing homes, the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have announced new actions to further nursing home safeguards. These actions include targeting the inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications and revamping their Special Focus Facility (SFF) Program to improve overall nursing home quality. In the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, CMS has taken material steps to advance the Biden-Harris administration’s intentions of promoting nursing home safety, transparency, accountability and quality. Specifically, on October 21, 2022, CMS announced revisions to its Special Focus Facility (SFF) Program, which focuses on the country’s poorest-performing nursing facilities. And on January 18, 2023, CMS announced new actions to help reduce inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications in the senior services industry. We review these developments in this alert.
The “Nursing Home Covid-19 Data Dashboard” maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that COVID-19 had an unusually intense impact on the long term care community. Cases among nursing home residents first peaked during the end of December 2020, at a rate of 31 cases per 1,000 residents, and then took a steady decline for several months. Cases started to rise again in the summer of 2021, and then peaked again in the winter of 2021-2022, this time at a rate of 43.5 cases per 1,000 residents, before settling into a range not exceeding 17 cases per 1,000 residents for nearly a year. The Covid-19 death rate peaked near the end of December 2020, at a rate of 5.5 deaths per 1,000 residents, but as with cases, deaths soon started to decline, and have not exceeded a rate of 0.3 deaths per 1,000 residents for almost a year (since February 2022).
Every day when Ava Rezentes gets home from school, a nurse is there to help take care of her. But as of Monday, there won't be a nurse waiting. "We're kind of on the verge of collapse at this point," said her mother Kaui Rezentes. Nurses are leaving private homes to work at hospitals desperate for staff because of a record number of patients. "About 500 patients a day more than what we had pre-pandemic," said Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii. "Because patients are getting sicker." But as hospitals pull staff from nursing facilities and home health care agencies, many families have nowhere to turn for help with seniors or children like Ava, who is paralyzed and on a ventilator.