According to a recently filed lawsuit, the restrictions on visiting due to COVID-19 prevent the wife of a New York nursing home resident with a rare neurological degenerative disorder from providing the essential care he needs and that the nursing home is not providing. Prior to the pandemic, the resident’s wife visited the facility from 4 to 7 hours each day to care for him and help with the therapies that are needed to slow the degeneration of the disease that prevents him from eating, talking, and moving by himself.
The lawsuit asserts that the resident’s “wife poses no threat of COVID-19 to him or anyone else in the defendant’s facility” and also claims, “in the absence of this wife, no other person has provided the kind of essential care and attention to his disabilities which his wife has and can provide.”
The resident contracted COVID-19 in May and has since recovered from the virus. His wife has been tested twice a week for the virus and has never tested positive.
Along with seeking an order to allow the wife of the resident to visit daily, the suit is seeking unspecified damages from the facility.
Compliance Perspective
Issue
Failure to provide the level of care and therapies needed to help prevent and combat further deterioration in a resident’s condition, even in the midst of a pandemic, may be determined as not providing the care needed for maintaining a resident’s physical, mental, and psychosocial wellbeing and quality of life. This could be considered provision of substandard quality of care, in violation of state and federal regulations.
Discussion Points
- Review policies and procedures regarding the compassionate care provisions included in CMS COVID-19 Guidelines for Nursing Homes (https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-announces-new-guidance-safe-visitation-nursing-homes-during-covid-19-public-health-emergency).
- Train staff on Quality of Life Care components, especially when residents have conditions limiting their ability to feed themselves, talk, and move.
- Periodically audit to ensure that residents with conditions requiring more intensive care, such as with eating, talking, and moving, are receiving that care.
