DHEC reveals names of SC nursing homes with COVID-19 infected staff, patients
The Department of Health and Environmental Control has revealed the names of nursing homes and other care facilities around the state where residents and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 since April 3.
The disclosure came Tuesday evening, one day after The State newspaper reported that DHEC had kept secret the names of nursing homes where residents and staff had been infected by COVID-19. Last week, Columbia attorney Desa Ballard sued the agency seeking the names of care facilities where residents and staff had tested positive.
DHEC said late Tuesday it plans to provide the number of COVID-19 related deaths associated with these facilities next week as well. The department is compiling and verifying “information to help present a fuller picture of COVID-19’s impact on these types of congregate facilities,” the agency said in a news release.
In the statistics released Tuesday, DHEC reported the 135-bed Heartland Health and Rehabilitation Care Center in Hanahan, near Charleston, had the highest number of cases in the state.
Heartland had 57 staff members and residents testing positive for the disease, DHEC said. Health officials didn’t reveal how many of those were staff or residents.
The 88-bed Midland Health and Rehabilitation Center in Columbia had the second highest amount of cases in the state with 29 infections among staff and residents.
Lexington Medical Center Extended Care, which has 388 beds, has had a total of six cases since April 3, according to DHEC.
Overall, DHEC listed 46 nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities and community residential facilities that have had at least one staff member or resident test positive for COVID-19.
“This virus is taking its toll on those most vulnerable to it, including our friends and family who reside in nursing homes and assisted care facilities,” said Dr. Joan Duwve, DHEC’s public health director. “Around the country, nursing homes and similar facilities have been challenged to implement unprecedented safety precautions while also providing important care to their residents.”
DHEC added that it decided to release the information to “better inform communities of this risk and to help protect nursing home residents, many of whom have chronic medical conditions and are at highest risk for complications or death from COVID19 infection.”
Desa Ballard, the Columbia attorney who sued DHEC last week seeking release of the information, said Tuesday night that her client, Frank Heindel, was gratified that some of the information sought was released, adding that the stats will at least help the public.
“Now the people who have loved ones in nursing homes know whether they need to get them out or not,” Ballard said.
“Transparency — better late than never — is always good. We still want the death information — I shouldn’t have to ask,” she said.
Jay Bender, a veteran Columbia lawyer who specializes in public records law, said of DHEC’s release, “What took them so long? Don’t they recognize that the public has an interest in knowing where this disease is?”
When refusing to disclose the names of nursing homes and other care facilities with coronavirus cases, DHEC had claimed to The State newspaper and to Ballard that it was because of privacy issues.
But Ballard and another Columbia attorney, Michael Jeffcoat, whose requests for the names of nursing homes with coronavirus cases were also rejected by DHEC, said there were no privacy issues since they were not asking for names of individuals stricken with the disease.
In a statement Tuesday, DHEC said, “DHEC prioritizes the identification of COVID-19 infections in congregate settings like nursing homes, assisted living facilities and extended care facilities because the spread of respiratory illnesses like COVID-19... the residents who live there are at high risk for developing complications or death from COVID-19 infection.”
Around the country, mass deaths at some nursing homes have made national news. Nursing homes and other group care facilities — where people live in close quarters and the disease can spread easily — have seen thousands of deaths, according to national news accounts.
Elderly people, those 60 and over, have proved the most vulnerable to being killed by COVID-19, which is a severe and easily transmitted respiratory illness that damages the lungs and other organs.
Overall, DHEC has reported as of Wednesday, 4,761 people in the state have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Wednesday. To date, 140 South Carolinians have died from complications of the disease.
In mid-March, Gov. Henry McMaster ordered visitations at nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities stop to protect the residents who may be more vulnerable to the virus.
DHEC said it would update the figures twice a week, and plans to release data on nursing home patients who have died next week.
The S.C. AARP, which has some 600,000 members over age 50, was also among those voices calling for DHEC to disclose which care facilities had cases for its staff and residents.
“This is a matter of life and death for people across South Carolina,” said S.C. AARP President Teresa Arnold.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 7:14 PM.
