Nursing homes in the South Bay and East Bay — along with Santa Clara Valley Medical Center — were issued fines on Tuesday for failing to protect workers from COVID-19 exposure, said the state agency which oversees workplace safety.
Cal/OSHA issued the largest penalty against the Santa Rosa Police Department, where a 43-year-old detective died of the virus in late March.
State inspectors found that Gateway Care & Rehabilitation Center, where 31 employees contracted COVID-19, exposed nurses and housekeeping workers to the virus and did not provide necessary personal protective equipment. The Hayward nursing home was fined $23,430. Nineteen residents there have died, the most of any Alameda County nursing home.
In San Jose, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center was fined $7,910 total for violations at two of its facilities. The center on South Bascom Avenue did not provide effective training on COVID-19 for its hospital workers, according to Cal/OSHA. The North Jackson Avenue facility’s administration did not properly warn workers sent to two nursing homes of the risk of exposure to the virus, the state agency said. Hospital workers were exposed to suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients at Ridge Post-Acute and Canyon Springs Post-Acute.
For not training hospital workers sent in to help, Ridge Post-Acute was fined $15,400 and Canyon Springs $13,500, although Ridge Post-Acute had fewer than 11 workers sickened with the virus. At Canyon Springs, according to the state department of health, 43 employees came down with the virus, and 12 residents died.
In a statement, Canyon Springs’ administration said it was reviewing the Cal/OSHA citation and remains “vigilant in our fight against this pandemic.” A Santa Clara Valley Medical Center spokesperson reached late Tuesday did not provide a comment as of press time.
The Santa Rosa Police Department was fined $32,000 for failing to require screening of people exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms in March. Detective Marylou Armer, 43, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome and coronavirus on March 31 at Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo.
Santa Rosa police did not notify Cal/OSHA until two weeks after her death. The police department also did not report “multiple serious illnesses suffered by employees who contracted COVID-19,” according to Cal/OSHA.
Armer, of American Canyon, twice asked doctors for a coronavirus test but was denied. She was cleared to take a test on March 23, but by the time it came back positive her husband had taken her to the emergency room and she was intubated.
Cal/OSHA issued a fine of $15,000 to Sutter Bay Hospitals’ CPMC Davies Campus in San Francisco for not ensuring health care workers in administrative medical offices and security guards in the emergency department wore respiratory protection.
“In one incident, a suspect COVID-19 patient underwent a medical procedure in the operating room while medical staff did not have N95 masks or other proper protection,” Cal/OSHA said in a statement.
