NO Covid-19 Data on Troubled City Home

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Philadelphia health department officials are refusing to release information on the number of Covid-19 cases at the city owned 402-bed nursing home, a facility with a long list of complaints and deficiencies.
Requests for data on the number of coronavirus cases and any subsequent deaths at the Philadelphia Nursing Home were denied this week with health department officials citing a 65-year-old law, the Disease Prevention and Control Law of 1955.
The refusals continued even after Philadelphia Health Commissioner Thomas Farley voluntarily released data on the number of coronavirus cases in the city prison system.
"Those are two different situations," health department spokesman James Garrow wrote in response to the second request. "We’ve stated in the past that we are not releasing information on the disease or any cases that may happen in nursing homes."
A review of state Health Department inspection reports on the city facility show a history of multiple complaints and deficiencies including the most recent in which a wheelchair bound patient suffered serious injuries, including multiple jaw fractures, in an altercation with a roommate.
The facility was cited for failing to immediately report the incident to the Pennsylvania Department of Aging and local police.
Though the incident occurred on Aug. 10 of last year, it didn't become public until state health department surveyors visited the facility on Jan. 23 of this year.
In a plan of correction nursing home officials promised a re-education program for staffers and an auditing program to monitor compliance.
The reports show four complaints were filed against the home since January but state surveyors concluded there were no deficiencies.
But multiple deficiencies were found in an annual license inspection at the facility in a report dated Oct. 29 of last year.
Violations included mishandling of drugs, food and other sanitary violations. Records showed a refrigerator storing drugs was out of proper temperature range on multiple occasions.
The records showed a female patient continued to receive a drug which emergency physicians at a local hospital had warned the nursing home to discontinue.
After her second trip to the emergency room for a bleeding incident, the hospital sent back a plea.
"Please stop taking your blood thinner medications. This was supposed to be discontinued on your last discharge," a hospital physician wrote.
"The facility failed to provide resident with treatment and care in accordance with professional standards and practice," according to the state inspection report.
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