Articles Tagged with infection control

For over a year now, families have been worried about elderly loved ones residing in Los Angeles County nursing homes due to the spread of COVID-19 and the number of deaths in skilled nursing facilities. Yet when it comes to infection-control measures in Southern California nursing homes, COVID-19 is not the only issue that can result in serious injury and death to nursing home residents. Indeed, just as the pandemic is beginning to get under control through vaccines, health officials are identifying the rise of serious drug-resistant fungal infections in America’s nursing homes. According to a recent article in The New York Times, “a deadly, hard-to-treat fungal infection . . . has been spreading through nursing homes and hospitals across the United States,” and it is “becoming even more dangerous.”

Drug-Resistant Fungal Infection Evades All Medication 

The most worrying recent issue concerning this drug-resistant fungus, Candida auris (or C. auris), is that several cases have been documented in which the infection “was completely impervious to all existing medication,” according to The New York Times article. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the drug resistance recently documented is “an alarming development in the evolution of C. auris.” The CDC describes it as “a tenacious yeast infection discovered in Japan in 2009 that has since spread across much of the world.”

Nursing homes in Riverside County and throughout California and the country are facing lawsuits related to COVID-19 infections and deaths among residents. Many nursing homes are arguing that they could not have taken any additional steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, yet skilled nursing facilities are required to have particular infection-control measures in place.

 
In fact, in early April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued guidance to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities about the types of infection-control methods that would be necessary “to keep patients and residents safe.” The guidance helps to provide clarity for the types of actions (or inactions) for which a nursing home or assisted-living facility may be liable if a patient contracts COVID-19 and suffers a serious infection or dies as a result of that infection.

 
Actions to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 at Nursing Homes and Assisted-Living Facilities

If you have an elderly loved one in a San Diego County nursing home or in a skilled nursing facility elsewhere in California, it is important to know about liability for COVID-19 infections and what facilities are doing—or not doing, in many cases—to prevent infections. According to a recent article in Time Magazine, nursing homes across the country are seeking immunity from COVID-19 lawsuits, arguing that patients and their families cannot allege nursing home neglect as a result of the spread of coronavirus. An article in The New York Times recently explained how California nursing homes, along with facilities in places like New York and New Jersey, are being encouraged to take COVID-19 patients from hospitals, which many are doing in order to increase profits.

 
What do you need to know about nursing home claims and what it would mean if facilities were immune from lawsuits?

 
Nursing Home Neglect Claims Tied to COVID-19 Infections

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