Sick, low-paid staff fueled coronavirus pandemic in Seattle-area elderly care centers
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Minimum-wage staff members who worked while sick at multiple long-term care facilities contributed to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic among vulnerable elderly in the Seattle area, federal health officials said Wednesday.
At least 30 of Washington state’s more than 50 deaths have been linked to Life Care Center in Kirkland. A report Wednesday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided the most detailed account to date of what drove the outbreak.
Public health authorities who surveyed long-term care facilities in the area found facilities didn’t have enough personal protective equipment or other items such as alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}They also said nursing homes in the area are vulnerable because staff members worked with symptoms, worked in more than one facility, and sometimes didn’t know about or follow recommendations about protecting their eyes or being careful while in close contact with ill patients.
Nursing home officials also were slow to think that symptoms might be caused by coronavirus and faced problems from limited testing ability, according to the report.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Life Care officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on the findings. Long into the outbreak, facility officials said they didn’t have enough tests for residents and that staff had gone untested.
About 57 percent of the patients at the nursing home were hospitalized after getting infected. Of those, more than 1 in 4 died. No staff members died.
“The findings in this report suggest that once COVID-19 has been introduced into a long-term care facility, it has the potential to result in high attack rates among residents, staff members, and visitors,” the report said. “In the context of rapidly escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in much of the United States, it is critical that long-term care facilities implement active measures to prevent introduction of COVID-19.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Infected staff members included those working in physical therapy, occupational therapy and nursing and nursing assistants.
Researchers who have studied nursing home workers say the jobs are low paying, with many earning minimum wage. Many employees don’t get paid when they are out sick, they said.
“It is very common for them to work two jobs in order to make ends meet especially if they have a family,” said Charlene Harrington, of the University of California, San Francisco.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Harrington said her research shows that large for-profit nursing home chains such as Life Care have the lowest staffing levels of any ownership group.
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David Grabowski, of the Harvard Medical School, said nursing home employees often leave for retail and restaurant jobs.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“We’re going to see a lot of outbreaks like the one we saw in Kirkland,” he said. “It’s the front lines for containing the virus.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.