Tag: State Long Term Care Ombudsman Program

Zooming Into the Statehouse: Nursing Home Residents Use New Digital Skills to Push for Changes

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | June 9, 2021 | This KHN story also ran onand

Patty Bausch isn’t a Medicaid expert, lawyer or medical professional. But she still thinks Connecticut legislators need her input when they consider bills affecting people like her — the roughly 18,000 residents who live in the state’s nursing homes.

With help and encouragement from Connecticut’s Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, Bausch signed up and testified remotely before a legislative hearing this year. Nursing home residents who have been using digital technology to reach out to family and friends — after the covid pandemic led officials to end visitation last year — could also use it to connect with elected officials once the legislature moved to remote hearings. Speaking into an iPad provided by the ombudsman’s office, Bausch testified without ever leaving her room at the Newtown Rehabilitation & Health Care Center, where she has lived since having a stroke three years ago. The combination of a virtual legislature and nursing home residents equipped with internet access has created an opportunity most nursing home residents rarely have — to participate in their government up close and in real time.  [Continued on Kaiser Health News, Next Avenue and Connecticut Public Radio.]…

Hundreds Died of COVID at NYC Nursing Homes With Spotless Infection Inspections

By Susan Jaffe   |    THE CITY    |    May 27, 2020     

More than 600 residents have died from COVID-19 at 25 New York City nursing homes that received clean bills of health for controlling the spread of infections, state Department of Health inspection reports obtained by THE CITY show.

Those facilities include homes with some of the highest coronavirus death tolls in the nation — including the Sapphire Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Flushing, which reports 54 residents died of confirmed or presumed COVID….

At the Franklin Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, also in Flushing, 60 residents — nearly one in five — succumbed to the virus. Its May 4 inspection report found no problems.

Also passing its May 11 infection-control inspection was New York State Veterans Home in St. Albans, Queens. Staff there previously told THE CITY that the state Health Department-run home failed to separate COVID-positive and uninfected residents, something that was a violation at other facilities….

“It’s very shocking that at the apex of this pandemic, our inspectors went in and reported that that there’s nothing out of the ordinary when it’s clear that the infection rate had spread,” said Assemblymember Ron Kim (D-Queens), whose district includes Sapphire and the Franklin Center.   [continued here].

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