Coronavirus: New Jersey care homes investigated due to high number of COVID-19 deaths
A relative says the first confirmation she had that coronavirus was in her grandmother's care home was in a letter after she died.
Saturday 18 April 2020 19:58, UK
Care homes in the US state of New Jersey are being investigated due to high numbers of deaths from COVID-19 and accusations they have deliberately withheld information from worried relatives.
Twenty-nine elderly residents have died at one home in the town of Elizabeth and 40 of the remaining 52 residents are sick with the virus.
At another home in the north of the state, 17 bodies were found squeezed into a small morgue designed to hold only four.
Police made the discovery after receiving an anonymous tip-off that a body was being stored in a shed on the grounds.
Distressed relatives who spoke to Sky News complained they are not being told what is going on.
"Nobody told us," one family member said.
"I heard it on the news and no one in the office is answering our questions, nobody is giving us any details, nobody is telling us anything.
"We're all sitting ducks, waiting to see if someone is going to tell us our family member passed away."
Viviana Olivero's grandmother, Dioselina, was a resident of Elizabeth Nursing and Rehab Center. She died in hospital last week after her family pleaded with the home to take her in. She was 78 years old.
"We believe that she was sick over a week," Viviana said.
"We had not been notified. We had an employee who let us know. She was not able to breathe, she was having respiratory issues, she was experiencing all the symptoms and for some reason she was not taken to the ER."
The first confirmation Dioselina's family had that coronavirus was in the nursing home was when they received a letter after she died.
The local mayor told Sky News he has asked New Jersey's governor and state attorney general to investigate the home.
"I ache for those relatives. I hurt for those relatives for the simple reason they get a letter from the nursing home telling them what's going on," Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
"That's not the way the administrator of this nursing home should deal with the families who are dealing with all this anguish."
The nursing home didn't reply to our emails but when we phoned them they said: "This is not a unique situation to Elizabeth nursing.
"Unfortunately many nursing homes in New Jersey are under the same situation and we're working with the Department for Health and local health agencies to comply with the department.
"So right now our main focus is caring for the residents."