Nursing home workers aren't getting vaccinated -- prompting worries about the elderly...
With a federal vaccine mandate pending, nursing home workers will eventually have to be vaccinated or face losing their jobs. For now, many have ignored Pennsylvania's request to do so.
by Justine McDaniel and Erin McCarthy
Updated 4 hours ago
Most Pennsylvania nursing homes have failed to achieve an 80% vaccination rate among staff members, missing the COVID-19 vaccination goal the Department of Health had aimed to reach by Friday. Only 19.6% of the 700 nursing homes statewide had at least 80% of their staff fully vaccinated by Sept. 19, the state Department of Health said Thursday. In the Philadelphia region, a little more than 40% of skilled nursing facilities had met or exceeded the goal, according to an Inquirer analysis.
“Each day we go by with staff not vaccinated, the risk increases … for the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Karen Buck, executive director of the Philadelphia-based SeniorLAW Center. “We can’t be playing Russian roulette with the vulnerable in long-term care facilities.” The state’s benchmark will be superseded by a federal vaccine mandate that’s on the way for all nursing home workers. But the fact that Pennsylvania’s nursing homes fell so short of the state’s benchmark underscores the widespread resistance to the vaccine among workers.
Many of them, industry experts said, have been swayed by misinformation or believe they don’t need it because they were previously infected, which isn’t true. That could portend difficulty for accomplishing the federal mandate, which may already be challenging to enforce, and indicates more education efforts are needed to address workers’ concerns, experts said. In Philadelphia, which told health-care workers to be vaccinated by Oct. 15 in order to stay employed, nursing home providers and other employers are worrying about losing staff. Meanwhile, senior advocates are concerned the vaccination push isn’t moving fast enough.
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Uptake of the vaccine among Philadelphia-area nursing home staff is higher than in the rest of the state, with slightly more than 40% of facilities in the Southeast meeting the state’s benchmark compared with about 10% of facilities in the state’s 62 other counties, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data. Half of Pennsylvania’s nursing homes had less than 66% of staff fully vaccinated as of Sept 19. In contrast, the vast majority of nursing home residents have been fully vaccinated, according to the data — in half of nursing homes, 90% or more of the residents have been vaccinated.
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/nursing-home-federal-vaccination-mandate-pennsylvania-20211001.html
This is all the result of misinformation being spread by those who are purposely on a disinformation campaign.
As everyone knows, when this pandemic began, the nursing homes and other types of longterm care/rehab/congregate care facilities, were the literal hotbeds of the fatalities experienced due to the virus. And it wasn't like these patients went out for a walk or a trip to the supermarket and then brought it back to these premises. It came in from the staff, support personnel, visitors (who were eventually barred), and possibly supplies delivery people.
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Because of his dementia, we're not able to care for my brother at home any more. He requires round-the-clock supervision now.
So the nursing home is pretty much like the others - good at some things, and barely adequate at other things. Since April there have been 3 instances of someone on staff having Covid (testing positive). The nursing home immediately informs the families of their patients that they're in quarantine and no visitors are allowed for 2 weeks. Twice now, the 2 weeks' quarantine extended to 4 weeks when a 2nd infection came up while the first one was ending.
I must say that the nursing home has been diligent about notifying families and interested parties about the infections. But it's extremely disconcerting that these infections are even happening. Why aren't these trained medical people more careful about social distancing? Are they even vaccinated? (We don't know!) Staff members wear masks while on duty, when they interact with patients and visitors, because I've seen them in masks. However when they're off-duty there's no way to know.
It's scary knowing that my brother and other patients are at the mercy of people who may not be cautious of their own health, and it could lead to infection of the patients in the nursing home.
