Nursing Home Residents Yet to Receive Vaccine Boosters

According to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article, tens of thousands of Pennsylvania nursing home residents are behind on their COVID-19 booster shots. While the latest bivalent booster shot was developed to better protect against the most recent and prevalent COVID strains, and while elderly nursing home residents rank among the most vulnerable to developing serious, and even deadly, symptoms with COVID, Pennsylvania nursing home resident vaccination rates rank lower than 25 other states and territories in the nation.

According to the article, federal data shows the following for Pennsylvania’s nursing home residents with respect to COVD protections:

• Percentage of Pennsylvania nursing homes where the majority of residents have not received the latest booster shot: 40
• Percentage of Pennsylvania nursing homes in which 75 percent of residents are fully current with vaccines: 30
• Number of Philadelphia nursing homes in which 75 percent of residents are fully current with vaccines: 25

According to a CNBC article, the national percentage of nursing home residents who have received an omicron booster is not much higher: fewer than 50 percent. While 86 percent of nursing home residents are fully current with primary COVID vaccines, just 47  percent of them have received all of their recommended boosters. Dr. Ashish Jha, White House Covid taskforce leader, says the majority of current COVID deaths include elderly persons who are not up to date on their vaccinations and don’t receive treatments like Paxlovid in circumstances of breakthrough infections.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows COVID cases as rising by 65 percent in nursing homes from mid-November to early December, and then dropping by 11 percent the next week. Nursing home COVID deaths rose 25 percent nationwide. According to the Inquirer article, 200 to 300 nursing home residents nationwide have died from COVID each week since the end of October.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services report that, since the start of the pandemic, over 161,000 nursing home residents have succumbed to COVID. Nearly three-quarters of the nation’s COVID deaths have been among seniors aged 65 or older. With thousands of nursing home residents yet to receive vaccine boosters and an impending winter COVID wave, residents should prioritize getting booster shots to avoid another high wave of nursing home deaths.

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, various issues amounting to nursing home malpractice—some that have plagued the industry since long before COVID—prevented nursing homes from protecting fragile nursing home residents, including the following problems:

• Staffing Shortages: Poor staff-to-resident ratios are illustrative of nursing home malpractice as staffing directly impacts a home’s ability to manage the spread of infection and disease. Nursing home staffing was low long before the pandemic, plummeted further during the pandemic, and continues to be a problem in the industry today.
• Poor Infection Prevention, Response, and Mitigation: From a lack of adequate PPE and COVID tests, to not properly isolating infected individuals, to poor pandemic hygiene and disinfection practices and contract tracing failures, nursing home infection practices during the pandemic reflected repeated instances of nursing home malpractice.
• Poor Regulation: In 2020 the federal government cut facility inspections, reduced health violation fines, and replaced certified aides with lower-trained temporary nursing assistants.
• Private-Equity Ownership: For-profit companies run 70 percent of American nursing homes, and are known to engage in acts of nursing home malpractice that have resulted in poor quality care. A New Jersey study of COVID-19 in private equity-owned nursing homes found that COVID nursing home infection rates were 30 percent higher, and COVID deaths 40 percent higher, than the state average. And the White House recently declared that residents of private equity-owned nursing facilities have a greater likelihood of experiencing nursing home malpractice and wrongful death.

Even properly implemented protective measures were insufficient to fully protect vulnerable elderly residents living in close proximity to one another during the worst months of the pandemic, says the Inquirer. Only the introduction of the vaccine in late 2020 caused death rates among nursing home residents to begin dropping. And considering the quickly waning immunity of elderly residents, boosters should be prioritized for them to prevent the risk of serious illness.

Defending Against Nursing Home Malpractice and Wrongful Death

As a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, Brian P. Murphy tirelessly fights to protect the health and safety of residents living in Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing homes. Years of experience as a wrongful death attorney fighting negligent Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes has led Brian Murphy to successfully resolve numerous nursing home malpractice cases. Should you find yourself needing to contact a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, call Brian Murphy today to discuss your legal options.

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Nursing Home Staffing Shortages Prevent Philadelphia Hospitals from Discharging Patients to Facilities:

The problem of assisted care understaffing came to the fore during January’s omicron COVID-19 surge as Philadelphia hospitals had nowhere to discharge their elderly patients.

In January, staff shortages at nursing homes and home-care companies were among the main issues contributing to an overload of patients in Philadelphia hospitals, says a Philadelphia Inquirer article. Philadelphia-area hospitals were forced to house an accumulation of patients needing nursing-home care when the rapid spread of the omicron variant among nursing home staff worsened the problem of assisted care understaffing in the area’s surrounding nursing homes.

Staffing shortages prevent Philadelphia hospitals from discharging patients which prompted the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, a Harrisburg trade group for nursing homes and other long-term care providers, to propose a strategy for increased nursing home staffing levels. The proposal suggested utilizing the Pennsylvania National Guard and federal resources to boost staffing in understaffed nursing homes with available beds.

January’s COVID-19 surge served to exacerbate an ongoing issue, as assisted care understaffing woes have plagued not only Philadelphia area nursing homes, but also the industry as a whole since before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Striving to increase nursing home staffing levels and working to resolve assisted care understaffing is paramount to the effort of ensuring sufficient resident care and preventing nursing home neglect. A case in point is the difficulty of preventing bedsores in nursing home residents when there is a shortage of nurses and nurse aides to help them. Since preventing bedsores essentially requires every bedsore-prone resident to be frequently repositioned in order to reduce long-term pressure against their skin, a nursing home must be able to scale its staff to meet this need. When a facility fails in preventing bedsores, nursing home neglect most likely has occurred.

Keeping Your Loved One Safe

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes should take every measure to preserve its residents against nursing home neglect or abuse, including providing adequate, quality staffing. Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. The development and/or deterioration of bed sores is indicative that nursing home neglect has occurred. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Nursing Home Residents Suffer as Overly Strict Covid Restrictions Persist:

Social distancing and limited visitation amount to continued isolation for lonely and infirm residents.

Despite a significantly lower risk for transmitting COVID-19 following the vaccination of 75% of American nursing home residents, pandemic restrictions inside homes continue to be enforced, says an Associated Press article, a measure that family members say does more harm than good.

While pandemic rules around the nation are being loosened, mask-wearing and social distancing within many nursing homes continues to be the norm, even as the numbers of COVID infections and deaths in homes have dropped dramatically. Frustrated family members say that the distanced activities, the near-isolation during dining, and, in some homes, the prohibition of hugs, does not meaningfully differ from the pandemic isolation that took a substantial mental and emotional toll on lonely and sick elderly residents—particularly those suffering from dementia—during imposed lockdowns. Especially difficult for residents and their families alike is the limited visitation that is still required in many homes. In some cases, visits are restricted to once or twice a week or even less frequently, with visitation times ranging from two hours down to just 15 minutes. Visitation ceases entirely if someone in the home tests positive for COVID.

According to the article, some Pennsylvania nursing homes’ COVID-19 restrictions, such as the limits on visitation, exceed state and federal requirements. While these measures seek to protect the vulnerable elderly, families claim they are not only unnecessary, but harmful, in some cases contributing to the mental and physical decline of nursing home residents.

While nursing home residents suffer as overly strict COVID restrictions persist, advocacy groups concerned about residents’ suffering and decline as a result of limited visitation have reached out to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and requested that full visitation rights be restored. These groups also seek a change in federal guidance regarding what measures should be taken in the event of new COVID-19 cases. While federal guidance requires a suspension of visits for at least 14 days, advocates and family members argue that this is excessive when only a case or two crop up in a home.

The coronavirus pandemic led to over 650,000 COVID-19 infections of long-term care residents and the death of more than 130,000 in the country’s nursing homes, harrowing numbers that explain the extreme limitations put into place during the height of the crisis. But family members and advocates dispute the continued necessity of certain safety restrictions, when the focus should be shifted to improving the mental and emotional health of vulnerable elderly residents

Ensuring Your Loved One’s Needs Are Met

The Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives is required not only to meet health and safety standards, but also to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. Should you have concerns about the quality of care in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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PA Dementia Patients Disproportionately Impacted by COVID:

Pennsylvania nursing home residents suffering from dementia were among the most severely impacted during the coronavirus pandemic, says an article on nbcphiladelphia.com.  The combination of insufficiently staffed and inadequately trained workers and a lack of measures to ensure homes met minimal requirements left many dementia patients especially unprotected during the most crucial days of the crisis.

While the havoc wrought by the virus upon long-term care facilities is common knowledge, its impact on those residents suffering from dementia is less well-known. According to nbcphiladelphia.com, even though PA homes with designated dementia units total less than a third of all Pennsylvania long-term care facilities, these homes account for 70% of all such facilities that had five or more deaths from COVID. In southwestern PA alone, 17 of 34 long-term care homes with dementia wards suffered five or more deaths from COVID.

The article also referenced a February study reviewing over 60 million medical records from across the nation that showed that people with dementia were found to be twice as likely as those without the impairment to be infected with COVID-19 and almost four times as likely to die from it.

While whether or not dementia patients are more physically susceptible to COVID (e.g. if the condition’s damage to the blood-brain barrier facilitates the virus’s entry into the brain) is a question that has yet to be answered, it is agreed these patients’ memory impairment puts them at a disadvantage in terms of protecting themselves from the virus. Among the basic and necessary preventative measures that prove difficult for those suffering from dementia includes:

• Remembering to wear a mask
• Staying cognizant of proper social distancing
• Maintaining hand hygiene
• Practicing cough etiquette

These issues were compounded in personal care homes by the lack of state infection control regulations, the dearth of medically trained staff, and the low—and rarely state-monitored— minimal requirement of just two hours of care per day per dementia patient.

Increasing staffing has long been a challenge in U.S. nursing homes, and as the number of Pennsylvanians living with dementia continues to grow, the staffing problem will only become more dire. Since 2015 the number of dementia units in PA homes has grown by 22 percent. Even in the past year the need for greater dementia care has exploded, which NBC Philadelphia attributes to the isolation experienced by many nursing home residents during the shutdown.

With PA dementia patients disproportionately impacted by COVID, recommendations to make regulation changes regarding training and other aspects of PA long-term care were suggested by the state’s Alzheimer’s Association last summer. Jen Ebersole, the association’s director of state government affairs, said she feared that, unless changes are made, problems will only worsen.

Making Your Loved One’s Safety a Priority

Determining the quality and safety of the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives is essential. Meeting health and safety standards and to ensuring the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents is a requirement to which Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes must adhere. Should you have concerns about the quality of care in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers Blocked by Federal Judge: 

On November 30, President’ Biden’s mandate requiring hospital and nursing home workers to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 was blocked by a federal judge, according to a New York Times article. With his issuing of a preliminary injunction, Judge Terry A. Doughty of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, has taken a preliminary legal step toward ending the national mandate.

“There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million health care workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency,” said Doughty. “It is not clear that even an act of Congress mandating a vaccine would be constitutional.” The judge added that the plaintiffs had an interest in preventing the loss of jobs and tax revenue that may result from the mandate.

Despite many being in favor of workers receiving COVID-19 vaccinations in order to protect residents, from the time the mandate was announced in August, nursing homes already coping with staff shortages feared the regulation would impel vaccine hesitant nursing home employees to find employment elsewhere in healthcare not covered by the mandate. But with the loss of federal Medicare and Medicaid funding on the line for facilities not in compliance with the mandate—a loss that would be crippling for most homes—many nursing homes felt they had little choice but to comply.

With this past summer’s surge of the Delta variant in nursing homes, many states and cities across the nation had set their own mandates for healthcare workers. Philadelphia’s mandate prompted a 30.3 percent increase in healthcare worker vaccinations so that, as of November, the vaccination rate among Philadelphia healthcare workers stood at 90.8 percent. The Times puts the national immunization rate for nursing home workers at 74 percent, although certain regions of the country have much lower rates.

The Biden Administration’s mandate was met with opposition by various states fearing its impact on state budgets and the potential to intensify health care worker shortages, including a lawsuit brought by Louisiana and 13 other states. Just prior to the vaccine mandate for health care workers being blocked by federal judge Doughty, a federal court in Missouri issued a similar order relating to a 10-state lawsuit against the mandate.

Responding to the court decisions, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid stated, “While we cannot comment on the litigation, CMS has remained committed to protecting the health and safety of beneficiaries and health care workers. The vaccine requirement for health care workers addresses the risk of unvaccinated health care staff to patient safety and provides stability and uniformity across the nation’s health care system.”

Fighting for Your Loved One

Ensuring adequate, quality staffing is among the measures Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes should take to preserve its residents against nursing home neglect or abuse . Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Mandate Gets Vaccine Results in Philadelphia Nursing Homes:

The vaccine mandate for Philadelphia healthcare workers has succeeded in prompting 46 of the city’s 47 nursing homes to ensure the full vaccination of all non-exempted staff workers, says a Nov. 6 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Based on a report compiled from a survey sent to Philadelphia nursing homes on Oct. 15, 90.8% of the city’s nursing home workers are now fully vaccinated, an increase of over 30% since the mandate was announced for healthcare workers three months ago. Beyond those fully vaccinated, 4.8%  of workers have received at least the first of their shots.

Despite its extremely high vaccination rates (94.8% fully vaccinated and 1.3% partially vaccinated as of Oct. 24), the Delaware Valley Veteran’s Home is listed as not having satisfied the city’s mandate. According to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, this Northeast Philadelphia home, a 171-bed facility run by the Pennsylvania Department of Veteran’s Affairs, was considered not in compliance with the mandate only due to its failure to put into place any formal exemptions. According to the article, Philadelphia officials remain confident that the home is striving to meet the city’s requirements as quickly as possible.

The mandate gets vaccine results in Philadelphia nursing homes, aside from the religious or medically exempt. The report lists 286 Philadelphia nursing home workers as being exempt from COVID-19 vaccine requirements. The majority of these workers—230—received religious exemptions from the city, while medical exemptions accounted for the remaining 56 people. Workers with approved exemptions are able to continue working in homes, provided they wear two masks and get tested twice weekly. By contrast, those workers with unvaccinated or unknown statuses are not permitted to work until proof of vaccination is shown, says the city. As of the time of the report, 75 workers were unvaccinated, and 66 were recorded as unknown.

The question remains as to how vaccine mandates across the state and nation might impact an industry already plagued by staff shortages and high turnover. In Philadelphia, those workers listed as “no longer employed” number fewer than 200. The report does not indicate whether these workers chose to quit their job rather than receive a vaccination or were fired for not getting one.

Fighting for a Safe Environment for Your Loved One

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the poor care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse [https://www.thenursinghomeattorneys.com/nursing-home-abuse-and-neglect/]. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Plummeting Nursing Home Occupancy Rates Raise Quality of Care Questions

The pandemic sent the median occupancy rate in American nursing homes plummeting, and with no return to pre-pandemic rates in sight, experts fear resident care will suffer, says an AARP article. With facilities projected to lose $94 billion between 2020 and 2021, money will be scarce for everything from activities and food quality to staffing and infection control. Such deficiencies will impact the health and quality of life for residents, potentially resulting in an uptick in bedsores, falls, infections, and other negative effects.

While nursing home occupancy numbers have been declining since the 93 percent occupancy rate of the late 1970s, from January 2020 to January 2021 the percentage rate fell sharply from 85 to 68, thanks to the ravages of the coronavirus. Even with the introduction of vaccines and the swift decline of nursing home COVID cases, the occupancy number has risen only a few points (to 74 percent) as of September.

Plummeting nursing home occupancy rates raise quality of care questions and experts are pessimistic about the recovery of nursing home occupancy rates due to three factors: the persistent fears regarding the safety of nursing homes, the continued staffing crisis, and the dominance of for-profit chains in the industry.

• Safety Fears—The recent rise of virus cases due to the highly contagious delta variant has rendered many potential nursing home residents reluctant to move in. To complicate matters, vaccine hesitancy among nursing home staff has deepened fears about nursing home safety for residents. Vaccine mandates for nursing home workers are just coming into effect, and could produce another unwanted problem: a deepening of staffing shortages once unvaccinated workers are not permitted to work.
• Staff Shortages—Staffing issues are not only a product, but a contributing cause, of low occupancy in homes. Not having adequate staff to provide sufficient care forces homes to keep occupancy rates low. According to the AARP article, nearly 60 percent of U.S. nursing homes are limiting new admissions because of a limited workforce. Nearly 80 percent fear staffing challenges might force them to close. In the meantime, homes are struggling with the short staff they have. Even when nursing homes are able to meet the minimum standard of nursing coverage as outlined by Medicare and Medicaid, these staffing requirements often fall short of what experts feel are necessary to truly meet each resident’s needs.
• For-Profit Chains—About 70 percent of nursing homes are for-profit. The complex ownership structures of these homes obscure their financial transparency, so when Congress sends money in an effort to assuage low occupancy, how this money is actually appropriated in a for-profit structure is difficult to determine.

The article cites some warning signs of low occupancy for families of residents to keep in mind, such as staffing cuts, a decline in facility cleanliness or food quality, and closures of wings or floors within a home. Most importantly, family members should be attuned to changes in the appearance or health of their loved ones. Should they appear ungroomed, unclean, or missing items such as glasses, hearing aids, or jewelry, their home might be suffering the effects of low occupancy.

Protecting Your Loved One

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are at all times required to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents by meeting certain health and safety requirements and providing adequate care. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the kind of substandard care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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DOJ Won’t Investigate PA COVID Nursing Home Regulations

The Justice Department has decided against investigating regulations implemented by Pennsylvania during the coronavirus pandemic, says the Associated Press. The DOJ informed Gov. Tom Wolf’s office of its decision in a July 22 letter from special litigation chief Steven H. Rosenbaum, who said the department reached its decision following the review of information supplied by the state. Last August, Pennsylvania—along with New Jersey, New York, and Michigan—was required to hand over information to the DOJ to help the department decide whether or not to open an investigation toward determining if orders given to nursing homes during the pandemic contributed to the deaths of thousands of residents.

At question was whether federal law had been violated when the state ordered nursing homes to accept residents who had been hospitalized for COVID-19. Federal data reveals that over 250,000 COVID patients were accepted by American nursing home in the 12 months after the coronavirus hit.  Pennsylvania accounted for only about 12,300 of these, despite being a state with one of the highest proportions of elderly residents. While Gov. Wolf’s policy was strongly criticized by Republican lawmakers and became a focus—along with that of the three other Democrat governors—of then-President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, according to the AP no nursing home was forced to accept a COVID-positive patient against its will; moreover, the DOJ won’t investigate PA COVID nursing home regulations or concretely indicate the order directly resulted in an outbreak or death. Instead, according to research conducted by the American Health Care Association, virus outbreaks in nursing homes resulted from a home’s location, asymptomatic spread, and availability of testing.

As COVID-19 ravaged American nursing homes last spring and facilities battled to contain the virus with a dearth of staff, PPE, and testing supplies, directions came from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about developing a plan for admitting COVID patients and readmitting COVID-positive residents. Homes were told to keep these residents in single rooms or discrete observation areas. In March of last year the American Health Care Association directed nursing homes to safely appropriate admissions from the hospital by separating these residents from non-infected residents in designated wings, units, or floors, and to assign them designated staff.

Securing the Safety of Your Loved One

It is important to ensure that your loved one is safe and healthy while residing in his or her Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home. Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required to meet specific health and safety requirements and to protect the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Nursing Home Workers, non-compliant facilities will lose federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.

According to the Associated Press, the Biden administration has announced an emergency regulation requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all nursing home staff if facilities hope to continue to receive federal Medicare and Medicaid funding. President Biden’s new mandate, currently in development with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and expected to take effect as early as September, comes on the heels of similar state mandates taking stringent measures to impel the hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated nursing home workers across the country to get their shots.

Despite various incentives to persuade reluctant nursing home staff to get vaccinated, vaccine hesitance has persisted among many nursing home workers across the country, even as the highly-contagious Delta variant spreads through regions of the country with lower vaccination rates. According to an article from the New York Times, the vaccination rates among nursing home staff has reached only about 60 percent, with some states reporting rates below 50 percent. Earlier this month, the growing number of residents and staff being infected with COVID led to calls for vaccine mandates for nursing home staff, particularly in light of exceptionally vulnerable elderly nursing home residents, who, even if vaccinated, are more susceptible to breakthrough infections.

While the nursing home industry remained unwilling to mandate vaccines, throughout the month of August COVID-19 vaccine mandate for nursing home workers announced in various states, including staff working at New Jersey and Pennsylvania nursing homes:

• N.J. Nursing Home Workers: According to New Jersey Spotlight, on August 2 Gov. Phil Murphy announced a new state policy wherein by September 7 workers at state and private health care facilities, including New Jersey nursing homes and long-term care facilities, would need to be vaccinated or must submit to once or twice weekly COVID testing.
• PA Nursing Home Workers: According to the Bucks County Courier Times, on August 12 the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced a new guidance requiring at least 80 percent of PA nursing home staff to be vaccinated by October 1 or be subjected to heightened testing requirements.

CNN suggests that the recent approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by the FDA could lead to even more vaccination mandates.

Keeping Your Loved One Safe in Uncertain Times

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are at all times required to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents by meeting certain health and safety requirements and providing adequate care. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the kind of substandard care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

The post Emergency Regulation Mandates COVID-19 Vaccines for Nursing Home Workers appeared first on The Law Firm of Brian P. Murphy, PC.

Proposed Nursing Home Legislation Would Boost Staffing:

According to NBC Philadelphia, a bill that is part of a larger effort to revamp long-term care was introduced by senior Democratic senators earlier this month. This proposed nursing home legislation would boost staffing and comes as a response to the devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic in nursing homes. Additionally, it seeks to address issues related to infection control, staffing, and nursing home inspections.

Introduced by a group led by Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Ron Wyden of Oregon, the bill looks to take on not only the infection control issues underscored by the high rate of infection and deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes, but also focuses on certain pre-pandemic issues that have plagued the nursing home industry for some time, including among them the problems of low staffing and high staff turnover, as well as low wages for staffing. In a statement Wyden cited “the pandemic, myriad reports of abuse, and critical failures during natural disasters” as matters inspiring the Senate bill.

Proposed Nursing Home Legislation Would Boost Staffing, and according to the article, the following are the main provisions of the proposed legislation:

• Offering states an increase over six years of federally-matched Medicaid funds in order to increase salaries and benefits for nursing home workers
• Initiating a process for establishing minimum staffing levels
• Requiring nursing homes to increase availability of a registered nurse from the current length of eight hours to a full 24 hours
• Requiring all nursing homes to staff both an infection prevention and an infection control specialist
• Reinforcing state inspections of nursing homes and aiming to improve under-performing homes by adding them to a “special focus” program
• Forbidding the insistence by nursing homes that residents and families waive their rights to resolve disputes regarding care in court and instead resort to arbitration

In addition to the above, the bill also seeks to conduct an experiment to determine whether or not smaller nursing facilities might lead to improved nursing home care and a better quality of life for residents. Comprised of fewer than 15 residents total, these homes would offer such amenities as private rooms and accessible outdoor areas, and would also better allow residents and family members to participate in decision-making.

While nothing about the bill’s price has been released by the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed bill is estimated to potentially cost tens of billions of dollars, says NBC Philadelphia.

Fighting for Your Loved One’s Best Interests

Determining the quality and safety of the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives is essential. Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required to meet health and safety standards requirements and to ensure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the kind of substandard care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse. Should you have concerns about the quality of care in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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