INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana is clearing the way for dedicated coronavirus units in nursing homes, even if local authorities object.
A State Department of Health order authorizes shuffling patients within facilities or into new ones to keep those who have the virus separate from those who don’t. The state isn’t requiring nursing homes to create COVID-19 units, but the order invalidates any local attempts to block it.
Health commissioner Kristina Box says the close quarters in long-term care, and the underlying health conditions residents often have, make it easy for the virus to spread once it gets started. She says being able to create coronavirus-only units cuts off the virus’s opportunities to infect more people, and suggests it may have benefits apart from the virus. She says she’s received reports from dementia units where residents placed in isolation because of the pandemic have stopped eating and become more withdrawn. She says a self-contained unit of patients who already have the virus would be able to interact again and enjoy better quality of life.
Chosen Healthcare which operates Washington Nursing Center in Davies County, had planned to use that facility as a COVID-19 Treatment Center. They would have moved positive COVID-19 patients to that facility and those that did not have the virus to other facilities that they own in the state.
They wanted to concentrate those that were positive in one location so that all their resources would not be spread to multiple facilities across the state but be concentrated in one location.
After learning of the plans, and hearing social media complaints, the Davies County Health Department issued an order to stop patients with COVID-19 from another county, state or country from being moved into any nursing home or assisted living center in the county.
The state order negates the county orders.
Meanwhile, 22 residents of Anderson’s Bethany Pointe nursing home have died, and there have been smaller clusters at facilities around the state. On Tuesday, Box announced the first coronavirus death of an Indiana prison inmate, at Westville.