Deaths in the state’s long-term care facilities have dropped tenfold since the Minnesota Health Department introduced a five-point plan to address the growth in COVID-19 outbreaks.
“The downward trend we’ve seen is very encouraging,” said Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm. But she cautioned that COVID-19 still presents challenges.
“It is frankly inevitable that there will be more cases in long term care,” she said.
The plan provided assistance to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to control infections, test more residents, provide personal protective equipment and address staffing shortages.
There were 139 long-term care deaths in the first week of May. While deaths climbed for another two weeks, they have steadily declined since then to a low of 13 deaths last week.
The Minnesota National Guard had been called in to help collect resident samples for COVID-19 testing at the beginning of the effort, but they are transitioning out of that work as other sources have been identified, Malcolm said.
Nearly 1,100 Minnesotans have volunteered to help work at long-term care facilities to address staffing shortages, Malcolm said.
She added that at the beginning of the pandemic, most long-term care facilities lacked masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment. The state had hoped that they would receive supplies from the federal strategic stockpile to help the care facilities.
“It wasn’t well until late April … that we got a very small allocation,” Malcolm said. “To our surprise and our deep dismay we were told that was it and we weren’t going to get any more.”
Early on, many of Minnesota’s 1,700 senior care communities were caught unprepared for the pandemic. Some large nursing homes were so short on supplies that they put out calls for donated masks and converted graduation gowns or rain ponchos to turn them into makeshift protective gear. Some workers had to buy their own masks and other gear. Other homes ran dangerously short on staff as COVID-19 swept through their facilities, forcing workers to stay home to avoid getting infected.
By April, Gov. Tim Walz’s administration faced growing criticism from some lawmakers and elder care advocates for not acting quickly and forcefully enough to contain the virus.
Early on, state officials withheld the names of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities with outbreaks of COVID-19, which sowed anxiety among residents and families. And widespread testing in long-term care settings did not begin in earnest until mid-May, after COVID-19 had already spread to more than 330 senior care homes across the state and killed more than 500 people in those facilities.
The administration also faced heated criticism for a policy that allows hospitals to discharge coronavirus patients to nursing homes already devastated by the virus, including facilities with poor infection-control records.
State health officials have repeatedly defended the practice, contending there is no evidence that discharging COVID-19 patients to long-term care facilities has caused infections to spread, and the practice is allowed under federal guidelines.
All told, 77% of the 1,548 deaths from COVID-19 in Minnesota have been in long-term care facilities, state health data shows.
“It is hard to imagine that they can claim a great success in long-term care,” said Kristine Sundberg, executive director of Elder Voice Family Advocates, a volunteer group seeking better care for seniors. “We currently have a very vague and often distorted view of what is really happening to the quality of care in these facilities.”
The recent progress in containing the virus in long-term care is evident at Jones-Harrison Residence, a large senior care community in south Minneapolis.
In early June, 18 senior residents at Jones-Harrison were sickened by the virus. But through a combination of measures — including the isolation of infected patients, weekly testing and strict enforcement of mask-wearing — Jones-Harrison’s 44 assisted-living apartments are now free of the virus.
As of Tuesday, only two residents were still quarantined on the facility’s COVID-19 wing, and they may be cleared to leave this week depending on test results, the facility’s administrator said.
Now, after a prolonged lockdown, Jones-Harrison is joining other facilities across the state in allowing residents to visit with family members and other essential caregivers. Those visits will start at Jones-Harrison’s assisted-living apartments next Monday.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Chantal Peterson, campus administrator at Jones-Harrison. “But it’s going to take constant vigilance to stay in front of this.”
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Deaths in Minnesota long-term care drop tenfold - Minneapolis Star Tribune
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