OAKLAND — Three patients have died at an Oakland nursing home where a total of 36 people have contracted the coronavirus, according to an official with the facility.
“Sadly, there have been three deaths related to COVID-19” at the Excell Health Care Center on High Street, said Annaliese Impink, a spokesperson for the 99-bed facility, in an email Thursday. She wrote that the 36 infections all involve patients. It was not immediately clear whether any staff members have contracted the virus.
The deaths at the Oakland facility add to an already grim toll at nursing homes in Alameda County. At least 13 people have died at Gateway Rehabilitation and Care Center in Hayward and two patients have died at East Bay Post-Acute in Castro Valley. Combined, those three homes have more than 160 coronavirus infections of staff and patients, according to the most recent numbers available.
“Our absolute top priority is the safety and care of our residents, and we are taking immense measures to safeguard those who are not infected, and isolate and treat those who are,” Impink wrote.
The Alameda County Health Department has refused to provide updates on the number of deaths in those homes. The department’s spokesperson, Neetu Balram, did not respond to questions about Excell on Thursday, and email questions to the county’s emergency operations email address were not returned. County Administrator Susan Muranishi also did not respond to a message.
Data the state health department posted nearly a week ago lists fewer than 11 cases among both patients and staff at Gateway. The department has not respond to repeated requests for current numbers. A spokesperson for the state health department wrote in an email that updates would have to wait until all data was updated but did not say when that would happen.
“It’s astonishing that, at this stage of the pandemic, state and county health authorities are flying blind, said Mike Dark, a lawyer with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, a watchdog group. “Both sets of regulators are hobbled by the fact that they rely entirely on self-reporting by facilities. Not surprisingly, nursing homes aren’t giving them the data— it’s bad for business. “It’s not clear whose interests these counties think they are protecting. County Health Departments should start looking out for the public that they serve.”
According to state health department records effective April 17, Excell Health Center had a cumulative 35 deficiencies found by inspectors between 2017 and the first quarter of 2020, although it remained mostly below the statewide average for facilities of its size in each of those years. Last year state health inspectors found the facility failed to ensure an infection control and prevention program was followed for two of 18 sampled residents, including employees not washing or sanitizing hands before certain procedures and failing to keep a catheter bag from touching the floor.
The owners of the Gateway facility in Hayward, which has one of the biggest outbreaks in the state, have a long history across several homes of providing poor care. They have been denied licenses to takeover homes five times and were ordered to close a home in Sonoma County in 2018. Among the reasons for the closure was a documented history of failing to stop the spread of the flu and norovirus in the facility.
Also this week a major outbreak has been reported at a San Francisco Nursing Home, Central Gardens, where at least 67 people have tested positive and four people have died from COVID-19. Earlier this month, at least 19 people at the city largest nursing home, Laguna Honda Hospital, tested positive for the coronavirus.
Elsewhere in San Francisco, a letter obtained by this news organization that had been sent to residents of another facility, San Franciso Towers, shows at least two patients there have tested positive for the virus. The later, dated April 20, says one patient was hospitalized last week and is in critical but stable condition. The second patient was also hospitalized, but described as “largely asymptomatic.”
The facility has both skilled nursing and assisted living sections. The letter said all patients in its skilled nursing section are now being tested for coronavirus.
