Nine nursing homes and long-term care facilities in Oklahoma have identified 50 residents or staff with confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the Grace Living Center location in west Norman features more than 70 percent of those cases. The Norman nursing home has seen 36 people diagnosed with the novel coronavirus — 33 residents and three staff members — and four deaths.
Numbers related specifically to Oklahoma nursing homes and long-term care facilities have not previously been available, and rumors of an outbreak at Grace Living Center’s Norman nursing home have swirled for a week.
The full list of nursing home-related COVID-19 cases as of today is displayed below based on information provided by the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Spokesperson Shelley Zumwalt said the agency is now able to release the statistics after Gov. Kevin Stitt declared a “health emergency” April 2, which triggered a complex series of state statutes for the first time in state history.
“The administration and the State Health Department is committed to providing a high level of transparency so the public can make informed decisions about their health,” Zumwalt said in an email. “We are releasing this information on long term care facilities in the hope that can provide relief for those with family members with loved ones who reside there. To date, nine out of more than 550 licensed long-term care or nursing home facilities have had at least one resident test positive for COVID-19.”
(To view the full chart on your mobile device, scroll to the right.)
|
Facility Name |
City |
Cases |
Deaths |
Residents |
Staff |
| Brookhaven Extensive Care | Norman |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
| EMERALD SQUARE | Oklahoma City |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
| Franciscan Villa | Broken Arrow |
3 |
3 |
0 |
|
| Grace Living Center | Norman |
36 |
4 |
33 |
3 |
| Medical Park West Rehabilitation | Norman |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
| New Hope Retirement Center | McAlester |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
| PARCway Post Acute Recovery | Oklahoma City |
2 |
2 |
0 |
|
| Skiatook Nursing Home | Skiatook |
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
| The Villages at Southern Hill | Tulsa |
2 |
1 |
1 |
OSDH to families of residents: ‘Do not move them’
Zumwalt, whose primary job is with the Office of Management and Enterprise Services but who is assisting OSDH with COVID-19 communications, provided a lengthy statement about the nursing home data.
She said the agency is asking families of nursing home residents not to remove their relatives from their living centers.
“The presence of this global pandemic is unlike any we have encountered in our state’s history and will require the public to act in ways that seems counter intuitive, but we ask that if you have a relative who resides in one of the facilities that has had positive case you do not move them from the facility,” Zumwalt said. “To remove them at this time would present a dangerous public health situation and accelerate community spread of the virus by multiple magnitudes.”
Zumwalt said OSDH is working closely with nursing homes to address the COVID-19 crisis.
“Every precaution is being taken to ensure spread of COVID is mitigated and those residents that test positive are isolated as their status is confirmed,” she said. “If a staff member in a facility becomes symptomatic they are quickly removed from contact with residents and staff. We are in contact with the facilities to ensure they have adequate PPE and other supplies to follow CDC guidelines and ensure the residents are getting the highest level of care.”
But Care Providers Oklahoma, a trade association representing nursing homes and long-term care homes, distributed a press release April 2 asking for state leaders to meet three requests:
- increased access to personal protective equipment
- reduced spread of COVID-19 from hospitals to skilled nursing homes by requiring negative tests before hospital discharge.
- development of intermediate treatment facilities for nursing home residents that test positive for COVID-19
“I cannot say enough about our skilled nursing staff, whose actions everyday highlight their bravery, compassion and professionalism,” said Care Providers Oklahoma President and CEO Steven Buck. “Now we need action from the state to ensure these men and women have the equipment they need to be successful. We are requesting these steps so that our elected leaders, agency staff and the public understand exactly what we need to fight this disease. The governor’s decision to utilize the Catastrophic Health Emergency Powers Act today only underscores the need for swift action on these fronts.”
COVID-19 is most deadly among senior citizens and those with compromised immune systems. OSDH’s numbers released this morning indicate 988 Oklahomans have been diagnosed, 289 have been hospitalized and 38 have died.
State representative found silence ‘frustrating’
About a week ago, Rep. Jacob Rosecrants (D-Norman) started receiving questions and hearing concerns about a potential outbreak at the Norman Grace Living Center location. Learning of the 36 COVID-19 cases there today, Rosecrants said he is glad information has been released.
“It’s been something I have been trying to look into for quite a while. I guess you could say I’m surprised,” Rosecrants said. “I never could really get straight information out of it about how many people there or any of the other nursing homes had COVID-19. It’s just been very frustrating, and I’m sure that it’s been frustrating to family members, and to people who work at these facilities.”
Rosecrants said he continues to call for stronger statewide shelter-in-place requirements. The City of Norman has implemented some of the strictest measures so far in Oklahoma.
“What this shows is we should be taking this as seriously as we possibly can,” Rosecrants said. “You can tell this virus has been amongst us before we had testing. (…) It’s good that we are getting facts now.”
Theresa Green, a public relations representative for Grace Living Centers, distributed a statement around 6 p.m. this evening addressing the outbreak at its Norman facility. Grace Living Centers has eight locations statewide, with the Norman location the only one to experience a positive COVID-19 diagnosis at this time.
Green’s emailed statement read in full:
As indicated by the facility in its statement of March 30, over the previous weekend, the facility medical director began utilizing IMMY labs, a private lab in Norman, to facilitate aggressive testing of patients in the facility. The facility’s voluntary decision to implement exhaustive testing was one of the many ways in which it is attempting to fight the spread of COVID-19 within the facility and best serve its residents.
As a result of that testing, the facility was able to confirm as positive many individuals who were already presumed positive and many others who may not have otherwise been tested. All results were shared with the individuals involved and the appropriate authorities including the Oklahoma State Department of Health. The facility also shared with the media the fact that additional aggressive testing had taken place and the fact that positive cases were confirmed. However, out of respect for the privacy of the individuals involved, and more specifically at the request of many of our families, specific numbers were not released. It is our understanding that the Oklahoma State Department of Health has now chosen to release numbers in response to a Freedom of Information Act request served by the media. The facility’s first obligation, however, remains with the residents and families that it serves; we will therefore continue to honor our commitment to them to provide relevant information to the public and specific information to state agencies but will not independently release specific numbers or comment upon individual cases.
We greatly appreciate the support and prayers we have received from the community and continue to ask for their thoughts and prayers. We have lost valued members of our home and that loss cannot be measured. However, we will continue to work daily to protect our residents and hope the medical community can begin to develop more and better ways to address the effects of this pandemic. We will also continue to work and pray for a favorable outcome for each person impacted and ask for the public’s prayers and support toward that end as well. Finally, we want to again say thank you to our staff, who are working tirelessly on the front line every day to care for the most vulnerable among us.
(Update: This story was updated at 5:35 p.m. to remove reference to a death that occurred outside of a nursing home and to make a number stated in a quote consistent with the provided statistics. It was updated again at 6:05 p.m. to include Grace Living Centers’ statement.)
