Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, much has been made of the decision by several governors to force skilled nursing facilities to accept COVID-positive patients. Those highly misguided and ultimately deadly decisions have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, particularly in New York.
Admittedly, the average person may be wondering why this is such a bad idea. So, let’s take a step back.
One of the greatest misconceptions in the healthcare industry is what exactly a skilled nursing facility (SNF) is, and what its function is. Many people mistakenly think of SNFs as mini-hospitals capable of widespread acute medical care. In reality, SNFs are generally set up for sub-acute and rehabilitation care, not acute care. As such, the individuals they employ (nurses, nursing assistants, etc.) have a vastly different level of training and experience than their counterparts in actual hospitals. They also have a considerably different appetite for risk.
Staff in a nursing facility are trained for low-level infection control. If, for example, a patient develops influenza, the staff know, or should know, how to isolate that resident and still provide the care he or she needs. These healthcare workers, while incredibly admirable, are simply not qualified to deal with a highly infectious disease like COVID-19 with such a long potential incubation period. In addition, they are not nearly as likely to want to treat COVID-infected patients.
Therefore, sending COVID-positive patients to a facility full of elderly and/or severely immunocompromised individuals is a recipe for disaster, akin to pouring kerosene on a campfire.
While many people not affiliated with the healthcare industry are not aware of this, government officials, particularly governors themselves, absolutely are, as nursing facilities comprise one of the most highly regulated industries in many states. There is virtually no way that these governors did not know what would happen as a result of their policies, other than totally willful blindness.
Even in states like California, which did not mandate the admission of COVID-positive patients, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities are generally required to retain residents that test positive, which is functionally almost the same.
Perhaps if the media and our society as a whole actually cared more about our elderly population, this type of information would be more widely known. But more on that later…