KDHE: Test results on 85 residents, staff at KCK nursing home negative for coronavirus
Test results have all come back negative on dozens of residents and staff members at the Wyandotte County nursing home linked to Kansas’ first coronavirus death, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Tuesday.
“Just received confirmation that all 85 tests from Life Care were negative,” KDHE spokeswoman Ashley Jones-Wisner said in an email Tuesday afternoon.
A man in his 70s who died of the coronavirus last Wednesday had been a resident of the Life Care Center of Kansas City. Life Care Centers of America has facilities in 28 states, including seven in Kansas and 10 in Missouri, and owns the nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, that has been a focal point of the virus.
Twenty-nine people associated with Life Care Center of Kirkland have died of the new coronavirus, and more than 30 others have tested positive for the virus at that Washington facility.
The Life Care Center of Kansas City’s executive director issued a statement on Monday saying that 30 of the center’s 65 residents and 59 staff members were tested on Friday and Saturday, for a total of 89 tests. It was unclear why there was a slight discrepancy in the number said to have been tested.
Life Care Centers of America said on Friday that the man had arrived at the Kansas City, Kansas, nursing facility on Feb. 25. He was transferred there from Providence Medical Center, where he had been treated for undisclosed reasons not related to the coronavirus.
On March 7, the company said, he was taken to a local emergency room for “a medical issue entirely unrelated to symptoms or signs of COVID-19.” He was returned to the nursing home the same day.
But on March 10, the man “became unresponsive in our facility,” the company said, and was rushed to Providence with acute cardiac symptoms and a fever. The company said the man did not exhibit signs or symptoms of a respiratory illness at the time, and he died the next day.
The Wyandotte County nursing facility was notified by state officials at 4:30 p.m. Thursday that a post-mortem test showed the man had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Providence Medical Center said in a statement last week that it had identified the staff members who came into contact with the man and was “following all guidelines regarding healthcare work exposure.”
KDHE secretary Lee Norman said the death was the first known case in the state of “local transmission,” meaning the resident — who had been bed-bound — contracted the virus from someone in the community.
Rebecca Brennan, the center’s executive director, said Monday that the facility would continue to work with KDHE and the Unified Government Public Health Department. The center is complying with the new visitation restrictions put in place by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that apply to all nursing homes, she said.
The situation has required additional precautions but has not disrupted the facility’s operation, Brennan said, including accepting new patients.
“We will continue to take all appropriate measures to ensure the safety and well-being of our residents, our associates and the community,” she said.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 4:40 PM.
