On March 31st, New Jersey Commissioner of Health Judith Persichilli issued an order to nursing homes and rehab facilities ordering them to take coronavirus patients.
Relying on Governor Murphy's Public Health Emergency executive order, she issued a Health Department order that set out to achieve "the expedited receipt of patients/residents discharging from hospitals" by warning that, "no patient/resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the post-acute care setting solely based on a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19."
The New Jersey Health boss further warned that "post-acute care facilities are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized patient/resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission."
The order was horrifying, but not unusual. A number of blue states, including New York and California, had issued similar orders. But New Jersey had nearly half its deaths occur in nursing homes. Horrifying scenes, such as 18 bodies stacked in one nursing home facility waiting for pickup or the 53 veterans who died at the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home in Paramus, would soon fill the news.
As of now, 16,000 deaths have happened in nursing homes nationwide. That’s 1 in 4.
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On March 31st, New Jersey Commissioner of Health Judith Persichilli issued an order to nursing homes and rehab facilities ordering them to take coronavirus patients.
>
Relying on Governor Murphy's Public Health Emergency executive order, she issued a Health Department order that set out to achieve "the expedited receipt of patients/residents discharging from hospitals" by warning that, "no patient/resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the post-acute care setting solely based on a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19."
>
The New Jersey Health boss further warned that "post-acute care facilities are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized patient/resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission."
>
The order was horrifying, but not unusual. A number of blue states, including New York and California, had issued similar orders. But New Jersey had nearly half its deaths occur in nursing homes. Horrifying scenes, such as 18 bodies stacked in one nursing home facility waiting for pickup or the 53 veterans who died at the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home in Paramus, would soon fill the news.
>
As of now, 16,000 deaths have happened in nursing homes nationwide. That’s 1 in 4.
(post is archived)