Barbara Anthony

In The Era Of COVID-19, Mass. Needs To Get Long-Term Care Right

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by Barbara Anthony and Mary Connaughton
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

This op-ed originally appeared in WGBH News.

In much of the country, a substantial number of Covid-19 deaths have occurred in nursing homes. Too many states were caught unaware that crowding, poor infection control, insufficient isolation facilities, and lack of proper training and equipment for nursing home workers would create petri dishes for Covid’s destruction. As of now, this lack of preparation accounts for 24,000, or over one-third, of Covid-related deaths nationally.

We saw what was happening in Italy, where frontline doctors were forced to make age-based life and death decisions because so many elderly people were sick and ventilators were in short supply. We saw the first signs of the virus on our own shores in Washington state nursing homes.

So what happened in Massachusetts?

As of this writing, about 60 percent of Massachusetts’ 5,000-plus Covid-related deaths are nursing home residents. Some of those residents were receiving temporary rehabilitative services, others were in long-term care.

Apart from overall number of deaths, we know little about the faces behind the numbers. The Commonwealth has provided minimal information; for example, although the Department of Public Health (DPH) discloses overall nursing home deaths, it does not disclose numbers of deaths by facility on its public website. The federal government has now required such information be disclosed to residents’ families. DPH says it will take weeks to comply.

What we know about specific nursing homes, we have learned from local media investigations.

There is still limited transparency about state plans to protect nursing home residents. We need answers to the following questions:

1. During the early stages of the pandemic and currently, who in state government was/is in charge of the health and safety of long-term care facility residents and what lessons have been learned thus far?

2. What plans guided the efforts of the DPH, the state Office of Elder Affairs and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services as they sought to limit contagion in Massachusetts nursing homes?

3. Going forward, is the state prepared for a potential second wave of Covid in nursing homes?

These questions are crucial because nursing home deaths should not be inevitable. Mistakenly, some believe that nursing home residents are primary targets of Covid simply because they are old or gravely ill. That is not at all the case.

Seniors don’t contract Covid because of their age. They are infected through exposures to individuals who have the virus. The effect of infection for those with serious pre-existing health issues is more significant, and can lead to death, but that’s also true of 30- or 40-year-olds with similar pre-existing conditions.

Clearly, the elderly are more likely to have compromised immune systems and many seniors have underlying conditions that make the virus more destructive or even deadly. When Covid is introduced into an environment with little social distancing, ineffective infection control, lack of proper isolation units, and inadequately trained healthcare workers who lack essential protective equipment, spread is inevitable.

As we approach the fall, with its sobering predictions from experts, we are presented with an opportunity to learn from our prior faults and protect those who are the most vulnerable. The virus is as deadly today as it was in March or April. Preparing for what comes next starts with the Commonwealth answering these three critical questions.

Barbara Anthony is senior fellow in healthcare and Mary Z. Connaughton is director of government transparency at Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think tank.

Get Our COVID-19 News, Tips & Resources!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Study: Decline in Cardiovascular Health Screenings During COVID-19 Pandemic Poses New Public Health Threat

Pioneer Institute today released a new analysis focused on cardiovascular disease, An “Impending Tsunami” in Mortality from Traditional Diseases?, that examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has created another unrelated public health crisis. The Pioneer analysis examines how a single-minded public health focus on COVID-19, social distancing, and lockdowns drove reductions in screenings, diagnoses, and early treatment for complex conditions such as heart disease.

Supply Chains Understood: Covid’s Global Demand Stress Test

https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chtbl.com/track/G45992/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1148317750-pioneerinstitute-hubwonk-ep-78-supply-chains-understood-covids-global-demand-stress-test.mp3 This…

CRPE’s Robin Lake on COVID School Closures & Learning Loss

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), a non-partisan research and policy analysis organization developing transformative, evidence-based solutions for K-12 public education.

Prof. Raymond Arsenault on the 60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides & Civil Rights

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Raymond Arsenault, the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, and author of several acclaimed and prize-winning books on civil rights, including Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. He shares how he became interested in researching, writing, and teaching about the Civil Rights Movement.

Study: After Years of Steady Increases, Homeschooling Enrollment Rose Dramatically During COVID

After steadily increasing for years, the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children skyrocketed during the pandemic, and policy makers should do more to acknowledge homeschooling as a viable option, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

ASU’s Julie Young, Virtual Schooling Pioneer, on Digital Learning during COVID-19

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-host Cara Candal talks with Julie Young, ASU Vice President of Education Outreach and Student Services, and Managing Director of ASU Prep Academy and ASU Prep Digital. They discuss the implications of COVID-19’s disruption of American K-12 education and the future of digital learning.

UChicago’s Dr. Leon Kass on Genesis, Exodus, & Reading Great Books

This week on “The Learning Curve," guest co-host Jason Bedrick and co-host Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Leon Kass, MD, the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago. Dr. Kass describes the important pieces of wisdom and humanity people today can still learn from reading the Book of Genesis, the topic of his 2003 work, The Beginning of Wisdom.

“America Today is on Bended Knee” – 20th Anniversary of 9/11 – 20 Resources for Parents & Students

The heroic stories of 9/11 are part of our national consciousness and memory. It’s the duty and obligation of the living and those who survived to pass along this history to the next generation. As Americans mourn the events of 20 years ago, while in the midst of another national crisis during COVID-19, let’s recommit ourselves to teaching students and the younger generation about seminal events like 9/11 that still shape our world today. To support this effort, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, and high school students.