Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 20, 2020 / 02:45 pm (CNA).- Deaths from the new coronavirus (COVID-19) have soared in U.S. nursing homes, a trend that some advocates say reflects society’s disdain for the elderly.
“The nursing homes have been ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic” said Jim Towey, founder and CEO of the group Aging with Dignity.
Towey warned of a “disturbing undercurrent” in the conversation about the high occurrence of COVID deaths among the elderly, one which downplays the numbers because of the age of the patients and their supposed proximity to death.
“That is a function of a utilitarian view that Pope Francis has consistently criticized,” Towey said.
Overall, the New York Times reported more than 28,000 staff and patient deaths from the coronavirus at nursing homes and long-term care facilities in the U.S., as of May 11.
Nursing homes accounted for 11% of the overall COVID cases in the U.S., but have borne 35% of the COVID deaths, the Times reported.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread rapidly in the U.S. in March, nursing homes were at the epicenter. Early on, Life Care Center in Washington state drew national attention for its outbreak, and by mid-April there were more than 40 COVID-related deaths among the home’s patients.
With the virus fast spreading in the Northeast and on the West Coast, some state officials were concerned about a possible lack of hospital beds to treat COVID-19 patients. New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania began mandating that nursing homes could not reject patients discharged from hospitals, who had the virus and were stable.
On March 25, New York instructed nursing homes that they could not deny new patients even if they carried a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This, said Charles Camosy, a theology professor at Fordham University, helped “create an uncontrollable wildfire of infection and death” at nursing homes.
Camosy wrote a Sunday New York Times op-ed on the virus’ toll on nursing homes. He told CNA on Monday that the statistics were “awful,” but a sign of the times.
As nursing homes and long-term care facilities “were already pushed to the margins of our culture, it actually made sense that the dignity of these residents and workers was ignored and their lives discarded,” he said.
In some cases in New York, empty homes were transformed into COVID wards as with one former Catholic nursing home near Buffalo, which reopened as a recovery center for COVID patients.
Other nursing homes in the state were devastated by the virus.
At a single health care center in Queens, New York, there have been 82 reported COVID deaths. Confirmed COVID deaths at nursing homes number 432 in Queens and 489 in Suffolk County; there were 484 “COVID presumed deaths” at Queens, and 227 in Suffolk, according to the state health department.
The situation for some homes grew dire so quickly that, by the beginning of April, the CEO of the Archdiocese of New York’s health system ArchCare advised families of nursing home patients to take their loved ones home if possible.
A high-ranking ArchCare chaplain also told CNA there was a critical shortage of PPE in the nursing homes at the time, with staff being asked to use one face mask for a whole week and beyond rather than change the mask in between each patient, as normally advised.
Nursing home outbreaks in other states have also pushed up death tolls there. There were 45 deaths by mid-April at one Virginia nursing home. Carroll County in Maryland reported more than 50 COVID-related deaths at nursing homes by the end of April.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on Tuesday that 81% of the state’s COVID-related deaths occurred at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities; state officials were still allowing infected COVID-19 patients to be discharged to nursing homes to free up more hospital beds.
In a one-week period in Connecticut, nearly 90% of the state’s COVID-related deaths were nursing home patients.
In Florida, according to a National Review report, Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his administration’s response to the pandemic. He said Florida focused attention from the start on vulnerable populations, especially the elderly, and barred symptomatic workers from entering nursing homes. Staff were required to wear PPE, and state inspectors visited homes to provide guidance.
Even with the precautions, however, 938 of the state’s 2,052 coronavirus deaths–46%–have been patients or staff at long-term care facilities, according to statistics from the state’s health department.
New York reversed its mandate this week, allowing nursing homes to refuse patients who contracted the virus. However, the damage has already been done, Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, told CNA last Friday.
“I have some sympathy that, in the midst of the explosion, people were dealing with a true emergency,” Smith said. Yet, he added, “one can’t imagine the thinking that would go behind” the state’s decision, “unless you thought that they didn’t matter as much as other people.”
If an investigation into state policies uncovers “any hint of that” mentality, Smith said, there should be sanctions for “egregious and invidious discrimination.”
One precaution that could have been taken before the pandemic—and must be considered in the future—is to help families plan for long-term care so they don’t have to make drastic decisions for their loved ones during a public emergency, said Towey.
Towey is also the former director of the White House Faith-Based and Community Initiatives during the Bush administration, and served as the legal counsel for Mother Teresa for 12 years.
“In many cases,” he said, there was “negligence” demonstrated by nursing home operators that led to the “premature death of many people.” Proper safeguards were not in place to protect patients from the virus.
Yet when considering future policies to protect the elderly, Towey emphasized that they cannot be isolated indefinitely and “can’t live in a world without hugs.” Any policy must “address this disease of loneliness that’s pervasive.”
“I’m worried more about where we’re headed with long-term care, and how we do this in a humane way, because the elderly need most of all to love and be loved,” Towey said.
“That was the lesson Mother Teresa taught. And you just can’t wrap them up in bubble wrap to protect them from illness.”
And even after the pandemic subsides, the cultural trend of families “warehousing” their elderly members will still need to be addressed.
In some cases, Camosy acknowledged, there is no other choice than for an elderly person to be admitted to a nursing home, due to their family’s financial situation or the lack of a family caregiver.
“But in a large number of cases the social expectation is that ‘the place for mom’ is somewhere outside the home,” he said.
Camosy has written about Pope Francis’ condemnation of the “throwaway culture.” He pointed to a cultural trend of families pushing elderly members into nursing homes and forgetting about them, helping to explain why states failed to protect nursing homes from the pandemic.
“We push those whose dignity is difficult to acknowledge and respect to the margins where we don’t have to think about it. We like the consumerist lifestyles and autonomy we’ve achieved and don’t want to mess it up,” Camosy said.
Smith said that the churches need to be at the forefront of fighting the epidemic of loneliness in nursing homes.
“I think that our churches need to step up,” he said.
“There are an awful lot of lonely and semi-abandoned people living in such facilities. And I think that the Christian community, based on their faith, should up its game in reaching out to helping people know they are not alone.”
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Perhaps the legion powers that be should be barred from spreading and imposing their ideological bromides until they’ve been vaccinated with sodium pentothal. But, who knows, they might be allergic.
I suppose if she also refuses to use Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, Aleve, Sudafed, Benadryl, Claritin, Robitussin, Mucinex, Tums, Maalox, Colace, Ex-Lax, Pepto-Bismol, Albuterol, Azithromycin, Lidocaine, and Hydroxychloroquine, she has a case. But that case would be personal religious observance, not Roman Catholic
Remedies you mention are to treat discomfort or disease. Covid vaccines are aimed at preventing disease.
Roman Catholics value life, her position in relation to not injecting aborted fetuses is God honouring and church affirmed.
With respect
Those remedies have the same testing history as the vaccines.
A myth perpetuated by the ignorant particularly those who rely on the discredited, dishonest, autistic Father Matthew Schneider, LC as a source.
The “Everything Was Tested on HEK” Lie
There is a bit more to the story than that:
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/lets-get-a-few-things-cleared-up-testing-cell-lines-and-fetal-tissue/
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I will agree that she really does not have much of a case from the standpoint of being a Roman Catholic. The vaccines are a requirement to attend Mass in some dioscese, unless things have recently changed. And the Pope of course requires it for folks at the Vatican
Seriously? The pope didn’t speak ex cathedra on the “vaccines,” so there is no dogma involved, and he could be wrong.. It remains his opinion rather than a teaching of the Church. Study the Catechism, please.
And the Vatican has also made a clear case on the basis of nonproximity using Thomist logic.
Yeah, seriously.
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I really do not care of the Pope spoke ex cathedra or not concerning the vaccines. The fact remains–the Vatican has imposed them on employees and visitors alike. That may have changed recently with the wanning on Omicron, but there are a number of articles on that fact. There are also articles on a couple of diocese requiring the vaccine of priests or employees, or for in-peron Mass attendance, etc.
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Her case will be tried in a secular court, and were I a secular judge, I suppose I would have to look at this and say “Your own relious authorities/superiors mandate this vaccine for this or that; but you say your religion forbids it? Appeal denied.”
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And that is reality, and a mighty sick one at that. I feel for this nun. What has been done, and is being done, is wrong. It is a loss for everyone involved.
The vaccines(sic)
The experimental, mRNA gene therapy injections aren’t vaccines. People need to stop referring to them as such.
You frequently appear here to demonstrate a willful ignorance of the Catholic religion, not to mention a hostility towards its values. You might be more comfortable at the NCR, the silly one.
No one is obligated to cooperate with an intrinsic evil, including the evil of genetic altering serums fraudulently promoted as “vaccines” and immorally derived from the intentional destruction of innocent life.
This would be fake news. As of late, I’ve been commenting on political matters. When I look around, being anti-violence and pro-truth is more of a religious value than Russia apologism, and the promotion of falsehoods. I am sure that being in disagreement is unsettling.
On this thread I merely pointed to a list of commonly used medications with the same remote cooperation. I think a person can state firmly, “I don’t want to do what they’re telling me to do.” Such persons often violate speed limits on roads, safety protocols at work, or receive Communion when they are told they shouldn’t or can’t.
Now, if Sister Byrne opts for non-pharma remedies for headaches, inflammation, and other routine hiccups, her personal stance is consistent. Any Catholic anti-vaxxer who uses ExLax but clings to the remote cooperation principle, that person is treading close to hypocrisy.
To complete the distancing from cooperation, I recommend declining to buy anything made in China. Moral principles are good things, even when they run against the grain of one’s friends and associates. What else is there to be said? Buy North American herbs for aches, pains, and constipation.
If this special lady is prevented from her healing ministry, her patients are the poorer. If she states she is unvaccinated and patients have no qualms, then let her practice! Ultimately God is our protector. Though vaccinated, I would not have taken the vaccine had I known stem cells were used from an aborted fetus.
Her principled stand exalts God and informs her patients. May the Lord bless her.
Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Acts 21:31-32 And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.
Psalm 82:4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
A person of character is a great blessing to the church, through fidelity and their godly activity.
And, the “vaccinated” can contract and transmit the virus.
Just a small correction: Sister Deirdre is not a “nun (cloistered)”. She is a “Sister”. https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2009/03/19/whats-the-difference-between-sisters-and-nuns/
Press on, Sister Dede!
Hey Sister, (nun) try some Circumspect Analysis on your situation. Is it smarter to have medical people vaccinated, so they may not infect their patients? I’ll help you: The answer is yes. ALWAYS look at the other side of an argument before opposing it. This is a policy issue. Don’t take it personal.
The vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission of the SC2 virus. It might help reduce symptoms.
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There is no justification for any mandate for anyone, by anyone, for this vaccine. Including for our medical professionals.
This mandate can’t see the forest for the trees.
The Epoch times recently had an article by a scientist that Omnicron actually did more to eventually ebb the pandemic than the vaccine.
Jews?
I encountered a “Catholic” friend in the grocery store this past week, and in our conversation, I mentioned that I have not been vaccinated because of the connection all the “vaccines” have to abortion. She became adamant and actually strident in her statement that the “vaccines,” according to her immunologist daughter-in-law, had no connection to abortion. Really? Even the USCCB said that the abortion connection of all the “vaccines” was “remote,” clearly acknowledging the connection and recommending that Catholics choose some over others because the abortion connection was “greater” in some than in others. (My response is that there is no statute of limitations on murder). The only persons who can judge anyone’s conscience in any regard are that person and God. The United States government was established by colonists seeking religious freedom. I applaud Sister Dede and pray that her lawsuit is successful.
It basically revolves around governance not acknowledging the science about natural immunity. Why the heavy push for vaccines and total disregard for the effectiveness of natural immunity? big $$$ maybe?
This is definitely a control issue with $$$ directing the power over the peasants. The mandates are enacted irrespective of the facts at hand. A moral rejection is not even necessary, as an intellectually honest assessment of the ‘science’ easily dismisses any argument promoting these mandates. It’s unnatural for tyrants to relinquish power once gained. Thank God for regular election opportunities; pray that they are truly ‘regular’ in the true sense of the word.
Hopefully the following is true:
BREAKING: Sr Dede Byrne’s medical license reinstated and vaccine exemption granted
Good.
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I hope a few bishops take note that rescind their own unjust mandates over their priests and flocks.
If there is one life that cannot be saved (eg. a brain dead patient on life support or a recently aborted foetus), I would have thought our creator would smile favourably upon us if we were to save one little piece of those lives (eg. a whole kidney or a single kidney cell) to save the life of another by kidney transplantation or the lives of millions by the establishment of a kidney cell line to be used in medical research[eg. HEK-293 from which Astra Seneca Covid -19 vaccine comes]. After all, Christ himself taught, ‘There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another’.(John:15.13) He really meant it as evidenced in the sacrifice of his own earthly life for all others. Perhaps the good nun-doctor is in need of a refresher course at Medical School and of the exhortation to look for the good that comes as a gift from her God in the depths of the bad. Great good came from Christ’s terrible, unethical, human death. Why not from the deaths of we mere mortals?? Being anti-abortion should not be a bar to seeing evil defeated by the ascendance of some good.