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Your Call

How California's For-Profit Nursing Homes Became COVID-19 Hotspots

Chris Carlson/AP
Patients were evacuated from the Magnolia Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Riverside, Calif., after staff failed to report to work.

On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing rampant coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes around the country. In California, approximatelyone-thirdof all COVID-related deaths are tied to nursing facilities.

According to a Los Angeles Timesinvestigation, 192 nursing facilities in California have had COVID-19 outbreaks. The report found at least 13 are connected to the Plum Healthcare Group, accounting for at least 500 cases and 43 deaths of the virus. Why weren’t long-term care facilities prepared?

Guests:

Charlene Harrington, professor emerita of sociology and nursing in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco

Arnulfo De La Cruz, executive vice president of SEIU Local 2015

 

Web Resources: 

LA Times, Jack Dolan, Brittny Mejia: Coronavirus patients could be cash cows for nursing homes 

LA Times, Anita Chabria, Melissa Gomez: This nursing home had California’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak. ‘We weren’t prepared’ 

NPR, Ina Jaffe: State Examining Southern California Nursing Home Where Staff Were No-Shows 

Mission Local, Joe Eskenazi: San Francisco to mandate COVID-19 testing in nursing facilities — while state mulls providing them with broad legal immunities

Mother Jones, Molly Schwartz: “Nothing But Death”: Inside the Nursing Home Where NYC’s Most Vulnerable Struggle to Survive COVID-19