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Gallatin nursing home residents returning home following COVID-19 outbreak




Nursing

Nursing

Less than one week after five people died and more than 100 others tested positive for COVID-19 at a Gallatin nursing home, some residents are in the process of returning to the facility despite concerns from local officials.

Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey told reporters in a news conference Thursday that the North Water Avenue facility had been cleared to begin accepting patients back who had tested negative for the virus and were medically appropriate to return as well as those who met the definition of recovered.

“We’ve insured that they have disinfected and decontaminated the facility based on (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommendations and we are in the process of a controlled back transport of patients into that facility,” Piercey said. “We will not be putting any patients in active infection or any who are an infectious risk back into the facility until they are completely clear of their infection.”

In addition to the cleaning, state facility surveyors completed an unannounced inspection with “no concerning findings,” according to a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Health who added the department has provided “extensive consultation to the facility” to ensure they have a “clear and appropriate plan for patient care and infection control.”

In all, at least 74 residents and 33 staff members at the facility tested positive for COVID-19 last week, according to state and local officials.

Sumner County Mayor Anthony Holt said Thursday afternoon that the state department of health’s decision to allow residents to return so quickly to the facility “doesn’t seem like a good common-sense approach to protecting the public.”

“I don’t feel good about the possibility of them getting infected again because they are the population that is most vulnerable to this,” Holt said. “It looks like there could be another facility they could go to that wouldn’t be compromised.

“We don’t need to roll the dice and gamble on these people’s lives.”

Multiple local and county officials have also publicly expressed concerns about the facility reopening.

“I want to make sure this center is being observed and that they are doing things like they are supposed to be doing them,” Mayor Paige Brown said Thursday.

In a letter addressed to families, staff and the community Thursday, the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing outlined a 72-hour comprehensive cleaning and disinfecting of all touch surfaces that was performed by BELFOR Property Restoration. The facility’s environmental services team was also said to be performing routine and special project cleaning practices “to ensure that proper cleaning and disinfecting processes are continued.”

“We are actively working alongside the Tennessee Department of Health… to ensure the safety of our staff and residents for when they make their highly-anticipated return home,” according to the unsigned letter. “We will be working alongside our local hospitals in planning all patient transfers back to Gallatin Center over the next 48 hours.”

While she had received a preliminary summary of events related to the outbreak, Piercey said Thursday she had not been able to “drill down into the detail of what the timing was of exposure” but that “there does appear to be a growing concern of pre-symptomatic spread” on a national level, which means “you can pass along the infection before you actually have symptoms.”

All Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing employees who had been scheduled to work a shift throughout the cleaning process would be paid for their time, according to the facility.

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