MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — Families already forced apart due to COVID-19 are now concerned as outbreaks continue to ravage nursing homes across the country, including seven facilities in Mecklenburg County.
Channel 9′s Erin Edwards learned that positive coronavirus patients are actually being relocated to Huntersville Oaks, one of the seven facilities with outbreaks in the county.
The six other facilities are Hunter Woods Nursing & Rehab Center, Pavillion Health Center, Autumn Care of Cornelius, The Social at Cotswold, Carrington Place Rehab & Living Center and The Laurels.
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Family members of loved ones said they were shocked to find out the facility would be relocating even more positive patients to the nursing home.
Tom Williams said his father is about to turn 94 years old and moved into Huntersville Oaks on Feb. 29.
“I was unaware that there was any virus in the Huntersville Oaks facility," he said.
Williams said he heard about the outbreak at the Atrium-owned facility from a friend who saw it on the news.
“I immediately tried to contact them and couldn’t get through to verify it,” Williams said.
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He said he later received an email from the care facility that said there was an outbreak and that Atrium would be relocating other coronavirus-positive patients from other facilities to the one his father was at.
“I thought they lost their minds,” he said.
Huntersville Oaks said it will keep the transported COVID-19 patients in a separate wing of the facility, but Williams said it is alarming.
“It’s unfathomable to me why you would bring something that is known to be the most virulent disease known to man and bring it into a nursing home that has residents there who are the most vulnerable segment of society," Williams said.
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Another part of the email that has Williams’ concern is the line that reads, “to the extent possible, we have limited teammates from working in multiple areas of the building, to prevent cross-contamination.”
“They did not definitively say that they would have staff dedicated to the COVID-19 wing," he said.
After spending three hours trying to call the facility, Williams said he has yet to get answers.
Channel 9 reached out to Atrium to ask about the decision to bring coronavirus patients to the nursing home. It said this is a strategic decision and most rooms are private in the COVID-19 wing with individual bath and shower facilities.
A spokesperson for Atrium also told Channel 9 that both the National Center for Assisted Living and the American Healthcare Association recommended exactly what their doing -- grouping all of the sick patients together apart from the rest of the facility.
It is also recommended the facility implements the following safety measures to prevent cross contamination:
- Separate entrances
- Health screening of all staff and residents at least once a day
- Limiting staff from working in multiple areas of the building
A volunteer who works at the nursing home told Channel 9′s Mark Becker that it’s impossible to keep the doors from one wing to another closed all of the time.
“There’s not really a hard and fast firewall between that end of the building and the rest of the building,” said she said. “This is an airborne virus. It’s incredibly transmissible. We’ve seen the tragedies on the news every night. I just don’t want this to turn into a tragedy.”
Atrium has not said where those other patients will come from, but in the letter to families, it just said other Atrium facilities.
“I would love to get an injunction to stop it from happening because I just think it’s insane," Williams said.
Atrium is also offering to help move residents who are able back home temporarily and help them remotely, but for most, that’s simply not an option.
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