GREENFIELD — While families worry about their loved ones living in three skilled nursing facilities in Greenfield, two of those facilities have not or will not release the number of positive COVID-19 cases or deaths they’ve had, and the state isn’t requiring them to do so.
The only city nursing facility releasing numbers is Charlene Manor Extended Care on Colrain Road.
Lisa Gaudet, vice president of business development and marketing for Berkshire Healthcare, the company that owns Charlene Manor, said this week five residents have tested positive for COVID-19. She said all five are currently being cared for at the home.
“Their symptoms are not bad enough for them to need to be hospitalized, so we are taking care of them at the facility,” Gaudet said. “They are separated from our other residents, being cared for in a designated unit.”
Gaudet said some staff members care for those who have tested positive, donning full personal protective equipment, including gowns, masks, gloves and goggles. She said the facility is trying to keep that staff in that unit so there is little possibility of infecting those who have not been tested or have tested negative.
The National Guard tested residents who had symptoms more than a week ago, Gaudet said, and some of those tests came back positive.
“We haven’t had any deaths,” she said Tuesday.
Charlene Manor has suspended admissions, so there are no new residents, Gaudet said. Additionally, Berkshire Healthcare is opening a recovery center in East Longmeadow to help area hospitals with patients who still need care because they are recovering, but no longer require hospitalization. Transporting those patients to recovery centers opens up beds to others who need hospitalization. She said there are no other patients in the recovery center.
“We don’t want to integrate people who are being released from the hospital with our residents in Greenfield,” she said. “We still aren’t sure, no one is, about whether they might still be contagious. We don’t want to take that chance.”
On the other hand, Poet’s Seat Health Care Center on High Street is admitting hospital patients who have shown no symptoms of COVID-19 for 72 hours after being hospitalized for various lengths of time, according to Michele Carney, who manages the facility, which is overseen by CMC Health Care Management LLC.
“We’re not obligated to release numbers to the public,” Carney said when asked how many of Poet’s Seat’s residents have tested positive for COVID-19.
Asked how many deaths from COVID-19 Poet’s Seat has had, Carney said, “I’m not releasing those numbers.”
She also would not give any details about how residents who have tested positive are separated from other residents. Carney also declined to answer questions about whether any staff have fallen ill or tested positive for COVID-19.
“We’re doing what’s socially responsible,” she said. “Our residents are staying in their rooms, not congregating. There are no group activities.
“We did allow them to come to their doors while Easter eggs were being colored in the hallways,” she said. “They had a beautiful Easter dinner in their rooms. The bunny visited. The activities director made them hats with flowers. We put vases of flowers in their rooms.”
Repeated requests for information and questions of Buckley HealthCare Center on Laurel Street have gone unanswered. At one point late last week, a spokesperson said someone would reach out to answer a reporter’s questions, but no one had done so as of Wednesday.
At the end of March, the Greenfield Recorder reported there were 17 COVID-19 cases at Buckley, but it has received no information since, and repeated phone calls and emails have gone unanswered. Four residents had tested positive there by mid-March and another 13 by the end of the month. It is not clear whether there have been any more cases or whether anyone has died of the disease.
City officials have said they are in constant contact with all three skilled nursing facilities. They said they get daily numbers that are reported to the state for verification. The city is not releasing individual numbers, but instead pointing to the state, which reports cumulative numbers from skilled nursing facilities across the state.
When asked for specific numbers from all three facilities, Marybeth McCabe, a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Heath, replied by email that “the Department of Public Health (DPH) publishes cumulative, statewide data about COVID-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes and rest homes on our daily dashboard” at bit.ly/2RFezL4.
She said “data is not available” about how many residents in the skilled nursing facilities have been hospitalized and how many have died.
McCabe said “DPH receives information about deaths in nursing homes through data received via death certificates. Additionally, on April 6, nursing homes were directed to use the Health Care Facility Reporting System (HCFRS) to report any deaths that are presumed or confirmed to be related to COVID-19 that occur in their facilities. DPH has not provided facilities with a required timeframe, but expects it to be completed in a timely manner.”
She also said “the results from tests conducted by the state Public Health Laboratory and clinical/commercial labs are reported electronically to DPH directly by the testing entity and not by individual facilities or municipalities.”
McCabe said it is up to individual facilities whether they choose to make the number of COVID-19 cases within their facilities available to the public, but must report cases to DPH and the State Public Health Laboratory.
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-9591 or afritz@recorder.com.