A Nurse's Texts Lay Bare the Coronavirus Horror at Nursing Homes
Three weeks ago Deborah, a 38-year-old health-care specialist, showed up to work at the Parker Jewish Institute, an assisted-care facility in Long Island, New York, nervous about what she would face amid the growing coronavirus pandemic. The situation in New York was worsening by the hour, with hundreds of people testing positive and dozens dying each day, particularly elderly individuals similar to those she helped treat at her facility.
And despite pleas from scientists, academics and local officials working the coronavirus response, the federal government was lagging in helping states obtain essential medical supplies needed to treat patients. In press conferences, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that the worst was yet to come and that without the proper equipment more people would become infected with the virus, including health-care workers like Deborah.
On that day at the end of March, Deborah, whose name has been altered because she fears retribution from her facility’s executives, found nurses wearing trash bags as makeshift gowns and treating patients without N95 respirators—one of the best systems of protection for doctors and nurses who come into contact with coronavirus patients. Some supplies such as face shields and gloves did trickle into the facility over the following days. But not enough to protect all of the health-care workers for the duration of the pandemic. Multiple nurses working with the elderly tested positive for the virus and went home, stressing an already overworked staff. Meanwhile, the number of residents with coronavirus continued to rise.
On Monday, the State of New York released a partial dataset of some of the nursing homes and long-term care facilities that are reporting coronavirus cases to the state. Parker Jewish had the third highest number of deaths—38 deaths in total. But as of Thursday, 179 patients there had tested positive for the virus and 48 had died, according to a separate dataset that circulated internally at the facility, which The Daily Beast obtained.
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