Maryland health authorities have fined four nursing homes for failing to fulfill an order from Gov. Larry Hogan to test all residents and staff for the novel coronavirus and report the results to the state.
Potomac Valley Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Montgomery County and Glen Burnie Health and Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore were fined $4,000 each — $1,000 for every “instance of noncompliance.”
The details of the alleged noncompliance, and the reason for the different fine amounts, were not immediately clear.
As the coronavirus pandemic tore through Maryland nursing homes in April, Hogan (R) ordered universal testing for all residents and employees.
In early May, after facility administrators and industry experts said they were struggling to procure test kits, Hogan said the state would provide them. Units of the Maryland National Guard were deployed to facilities to carry out the mass testing.
In letters to the four nursing homes, Maryland authorities said they warned all facilities that failure to comply with the universal testing requirement by June 19 may result in penalties. The letters were first reported by the Baltimore Sun on Thursday evening.
Potomac Valley and Stadium Place are owned by Vita Healthcare Group, a private, for-profit company based in New Jersey. Vita regional director Gregory Strite did not respond to requests for comment.
Joseph DeMattos, president of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland, said that he urged all facilities to participate in universal testing, which he advocated for the state to implement.
He said that Maryland’s 227 nursing homes joined the testing that was conducted by the state in May and June but that 13 facilities “could not fully reconcile” the rosters of names that the facilities gave the state with the test results.
The Washington Post reported in May that Potomac Valley was struggling with shortages of protective equipment and staff and that infected patients were not being properly isolated. As of last week, there have been 92 coronavirus infections and 31 deaths among residents at the 175-bed facility, a spokesman for Hogan said.
The Post reported this week that Potomac Valley admitted non-covid-19 patients in April and May, at least three of whom contracted the disease at the facility and died. Many other Maryland nursing homes have stopped taking new patients during the epidemic.
Potomac Valley’s administrator Kathryn Heflin did not respond to requests for comment.
Maryland has fined at least two other facilities for missteps in responding to the coronavirus crisis: Pleasant View nursing home in Carroll County, which was the site of one of the state’s earliest nursing home outbreaks, and Sagepoint Senior Living in La Plata, where employees said they were asked to work without protective equipment.
According to a Post analysis of inspection reports, the state conducted covid-19 surveys at 20 Medicare-certified nursing homes from March 1 to June 15. Ten were cited for infection control deficiencies, including the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in North Bethesda and Shady Grove Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rockville. Both facilities have since corrected the deficiencies, state officials say.
Health officials suspended in-person inspections for more than a month after the crisis first erupted.