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.

“Hellhound on My Trail” Celebrating American Blues Music – 35 Resources for Students

As music historian Ted Gioia tells us, the blues are disappearing from popular music, because of modern technology and it not being taught. American schoolchildren need to know more about the basics of blues music history and its many African-American geniuses, who reshaped the sounds and rhythms of all peoples across the globe. To remedy this, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, and high schoolers.

Why did some nursing homes experience more COVID-19 deaths and infections than others?

0 Comments
/
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great loss for Massachusetts…

Ely Kaplansky Goes from Immigrant to Inc. 5000 Insurance Entrepreneur

This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Ely Kaplansky, President & CEO of Kaplansky Insurance. Since 1974, Ely has created hundreds of jobs in Massachusetts and beyond, with 85 employees in 15 offices across the state today, and he has grown his business during the pandemic, such that Kaplansky Insurance was named to Inc. magazine’s "5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America" list. His success fulfilled the dreams of his parents when they moved from Israel to America in 1955, with just the clothes on their backs and an aunt to take them in. Their journey began in the concentration camps of Germany, and Ely’s story is all about the opportunity and freedom America offers.

Aurora Institute’s Susan Patrick on Digital Learning Lessons from COVID-19

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Susan Patrick, the President and CEO of Aurora Institute and co-founder of CompetencyWorks. Susan shares observations about the long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for American K-12 education, and the prospects for expanding digital learning.

Celebrating American Independence! – 50 Resources on America’s Founding for Schoolchildren & Citizens

American schoolchildren need to know more about the basic history of and lessons from the American Revolution and War for Independence, including perhaps the greatest leader and hero the country has ever produced, George Washington. To do our small part to help the cause, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, schoolchildren, and citizens better celebrate the Fourth of July!

Why does a gender-gap persist in vaccination rates?

0 Comments
/
Men are more likely to die of COVID-19 than women: 13 men die…

“The Jazz Age” – 1920s America – 50 Resources for High School Students

American schoolchildren need to know more about the basics of the history of and lessons from the 1920s, which did as much as any decade to shape our modern country in the last century. To remedy this, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, and high schoolers:

Monarchs of the Sea – American Boats, Ships, & their Captains – 40 Resources for High School Students

In Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs on curricular resources for parents, families, and teachers during COVID-19, this one focuses on: Celebrating American Boats, Ships, & their Captains.