A COVID-19 outbreak has infected a third of residents at a Beaufort nursing home
The coronavirus has spread rapidly at a Beaufort nursing home over the past month, pushing the facility onto the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19, which has proven deadly in similar senior care facilities across the state.
At Beaufort Nursing and Rehab, 40 residents have contracted COVID-19, and three residents have died from it since June 13, according to data from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
It ranks among the nursing homes with the largest outbreaks in South Carolina over the past month, according to data current as of July 13.
In total, 57 residents and 17 staff members at the 170-bed facility have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the nursing home’s website. Since the pandemic began, four residents have died after getting COVID-19, DHEC’s data show.
“We’ve had a small increase in the number of cases,” Sandra Ferguson, executive director of the nursing facility, said Friday.
“I don’t think we know the cause other than it’s the spread of this virus,” she said. “We are indeed taking all precautions that the CDC and our local health department recommend.”
Ferguson said staff members mingling in communities where reopening has occurred has played a factor. Beaufort County’s daily reported cases have risen steadily in June and July.
Additionally, the facility retested patients who previously tested negative, and discovered cases in people who previously weren’t showing symptoms, she said.
“We have increased monitoring, taking their vital signs, (looking for) respiratory issues, listening to lung sounds,” said Ferguson. “We’re doing everything that we can to prevent (spread).”
Beaufort Nursing and Rehab’s outbreak makes it an outlier
The extent of the outbreak at Beaufort Nursing and Rehab far outpaces the spread at any other nursing home in Beaufort County or Jasper County.
Three of the nine state-licensed nursing homes in the two Lowcountry counties have recorded cases, according to DHEC.
But at Fraser Healthcare on Hilton Head Island and NHC Healthcare in Bluffton, only four residents at each facility have tested positive and neither has recorded a new case in residents during the past month.
The coronavirus has spread to an estimated 38% of Beaufort Nursing and Rehab’s residents in slightly over a month, according to calculations based on federal statistics on average facility occupancy and case counts reported on the nursing home’s website.
A majority of coronavirus-related deaths in South Carolina nursing homes could be traced back to facilities that did not contain outbreaks, exposing over half of their residents to the virus, The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reported in May.
Older residents, many with serious underlying health conditions and living in the close confines of a nursing home, are especially vulnerable to severe cases of COVID-19.
The low slung brick nursing facility that houses Beaufort Nursing and Rehab, formerly known as Bayview Manor, abuts the residential Spanish Point neighborhood off Ribaut road in Beaufort.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have given the nursing home a 2-star, “below average” rating based on past health inspections, staffing levels and other quality measures.
CMS records indicate the facility is owned by the North Carolina-based Epic Group Limited Partnership, which also has ownership stake in a handful of other nursing homes across the South.
A latent outbreak spreads
Beaufort Nursing and Rehab first publicly reported cases in residents in data released by DHEC on June 12. By the end of the month, it had recorded 39 cases.
But the figures of confirmed COVID-19 infections reported by the state health agency are likely an undercount of the complete extent of the pandemic’s impact on the nursing facility.
In early July, nursing home administrators at Beaufort Nursing and Rehab reported to federal regulators that they suspected 105 residents had contracted the virus since Jan. 1.
DHEC officials previously told the newspapers that research indicated a significant percentage of cases in senior care facilities were residents who displayed no symptoms.
DHEC completed a campaign to test all nursing home residents and staff across the state at the end of May.
But access to resources needed to fight the virus remains a challenge.
In weekly updates over the past three weeks, Beaufort Nursing and Rehab has reported a shortage of nursing staff and aides, according to CMS records. It also said the facility had no current supply of N95 respirators, the masks often used to protect medical providers when interacting with COVID-19 patients.
Ferguson said that is because, unlike hospitals where N95 respirators had been used pre-pandemic, the nursing facility has not been able to complete mandated federal government requirements — like testing the fit of the masks — for staff to receive them.
Staff members at Beaufort Nursing and Rehab wear face shields with surgical masks underneath, she said.
The nursing home reported adequate stocks of other supplies, like surgical masks and gowns, federal records show.
The outbreak has not been easy on the residents of Beaufort Nursing and Rehab, said Ferguson, but they try to keep up morale while keeping social distance.
“When we have bingo for instance, they sit in the doorway of their rooms, so they’re not close to one another. We have Facetime visits to family and friends,” said Ferguson. “And we do have residents and family members who live here locally, and they have window visits.”
“We try to keep residents stimulated and keep family members updated on what’s going on here.”
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 1:14 PM.
