Nursing home coping with virus

Staff attempting to keep life ‘normal’ despite 41 infections

Dr. Bushra Shah, Medical Director at Briarwood Nursing and Rehab, addresses the press about the positive cases of COVID-19 alongside Executive Director of Arkansas Health Care Association Rachel Bunch on Sunday, March 22, 2020.


(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Stephen Swofford)
Dr. Bushra Shah, Medical Director at Briarwood Nursing and Rehab, addresses the press about the positive cases of COVID-19 alongside Executive Director of Arkansas Health Care Association Rachel Bunch on Sunday, March 22, 2020. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Stephen Swofford)

The medical director at a Little Rock nursing home where 35 residents and six staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus said Sunday that the home has been working to prevent further spread of the virus while minimizing the hardship on residents.

"We're trying our best to keep life as normal as always," Bushra Sha said of the workers at Briarwood Nursing and Rehabilitation.

The nursing home is one of three in the state with one or more residents who have tested positive.

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Two residents have tested positive at The Villages of General Baptist West in Pine Bluff, and one has tested positive at Apple Creek Health and Rehab in Centerton.

Tests of all the residents and staff at the three homes are ongoing, said Nate Smith, secretary of the state Department of Health.

At Briarwood, the first discovery of an infected resident came after the person was transferred to a hospital because of "other health issues," Smith said.

"Many of our nursing home residents have got complicated medical histories, and they may go in and out of the hospital from time to time," Smith said.

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"Someone at the hospital felt like there was enough suspicion to go ahead and test, even though that may not be primarily what was being suspected."

The resident was then transferred back to the nursing home before the positive test result came in.

Smith said the resident "hadn't been at the hospital long enough to have acquired that from the hospital."

Asked if it was appropriate to transfer the resident back to the nursing home before the test result came in, he said he would recommend treating patients who are tested "as if they were potentially infected."

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"That's not always been followed," he said. "There've been people who have gone for an outpatient covid-19 test and then carried on their business as if there was nothing different. Well, that's not appropriate. If we think someone's at risk enough to test them, then they need to self-quarantine until those results come back."

Both Smith and Sha said it isn't known how the virus initially entered the nursing home.

"How do we know [how] this virus spread in the state?" Sha said. "How do we know [how] it spread in the country?

"It's hard. It's out there, and we don't know."

Health Department spokesman Danyelle McNeill said the department is also investigating how the virus ended up spreading to so many people within the nursing home.

Citing a federal health privacy law, Sha declined to say whether staff members at the nursing home were aware that the resident had been tested for covid-19 at the time the person was transferred back to the nursing home.

She said the nursing home was notified Wednesday that one of its residents had tested positive.

Working with consultants and the Health Department, the home's owners "made sure they contacted labs and personally brought kits and facilitated so that every resident could be tested," she said.

"We have done probably the most tests in one place," Sha said. "This has been a joint effort, and I'm very proud of them for that."

Speaking to reporters at the Little Rock headquarters of the Arkansas Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, Sha said Briarwood has been following guidelines from the state Health Department and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including keeping residents who have tested positive in a separate area from those who have tested negative.

Staff members who work with the residents who have tested positive are not working with those who have tested negative, she said.

Staff who have tested positive are being kept isolated at their homes, according to the Health Department.

Sha said members of the community have offered to help out by sending pizza or coffee to the home. Such gestures are welcome, she said.

"My appeal as a doctor is that these are the people that are out there in the trenches doing due diligence to contain this for our community, really," Sha said.

"Whoever wants to support these workers, please don't hold back."

Rachel Bunch, director of the association, said nursing homes are making plans to hire more staff. She encouraged people interested in working at a nursing home to contact the association.

"We still have classes and training programs going on," she said.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Dr. Bushra Sha, medical director at Briarwood Nursing and Rehab, addresses the press Sunday in Little Rock about the positive cases of covid-19. More photo available at arkansasonline. com/323corona/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Stephen Swofford)

Metro on 03/23/2020

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