HOUSTON — Houston-area nursing homes continue to battle deadly outbreaks of COVID-19.
More than 2,000 nursing home residents have died across Texas since the pandemic began, according to the CDC.
Visitors are once again permitted at certain nursing homes and assisted living centers creating new challenges and costs for the facilities.
Harris County health officials reported a deadly COVID-19 outbreak Tuesday at the Sterling Oaks Rehabilitation Facility in Katy.
As many as 15 residents have died from COVID-19 and 88 residents and staff members are currently being monitored for the disease by the health department.
Officials in Missouri City reported last week that 19 residents died from the disease and 85 others were infected at the Paradigm of First Colony.
“It still remains a challenge there is still the fight to prevent the spread of COVID from getting in the door,” said Texas Health Care Association president Kevin Warren.
Warren said countless long-term care employees work exhaustive shifts and are often isolated from their families to prevent outbreaks in the facilities. But it has not been enough.
Warren said the most vulnerable Texans have been a second thought since the pandemic began.
“We need to be able to take a step back as a state and ask, ‘have we been doing enough, providing enough resources caring for the elderly in Texas, like we should have been doing all along,” Warren said.
At least 2,100 nursing home residents have died from COVID-19 in Texas, according to CDC data last updated on Aug. 2.
The data does not include assisted livings or other long term care facilities.
Texas health officials now allow public outdoor visitation to nursing homes where there have not been any confirmed cases for two weeks.
Facility staff must be tested once a week. Warren said that gets expensive and can cost each facility $20,000 a week for tests and he is concerned the testing capacity may not be available.
“Ever since the start of the pandemic, we’ve provided nursing homes with guidance,” said Houston Health Department spokesman Porfirio Villareal. “We’ve facilitated testing for them, so we’ve secured their testing if they didn’t have a way to get testing. We’ve been helping nursing homes since before we had such large numbers, or high volume of cases in our city.”
Warren said he has not heard of the testing supply assistance from the city.
“I’m not aware of the Houston Health Department being actively involved to meet and supply the demand of the weekly testing,” Warren said. “That would be welcome.”
The federal government has committed to providing point of care testing for nursing homes, so results can be obtained in minutes, not days.
Warren is not sure when they will arrive. Until then he is asking everyone living outside the facilities to do their part to keep the virus from getting inside.
“Do all the things that need to be done so these visits can continue and we can control the spread,” Warren said.