KC health officials still won’t identify all nursing facilities with COVID-19 cases
On Thursday evening, after the Kansas City Health Department had spent the day working at a Northland senior living community, director Rex Archer discussed the city’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.
Seven residents at McCrite Plaza at Briarcliff in Kansas City North had tested positive for the coronavirus, Archer and Mayor Quinton Lucas said. More testing was being done.
It marked a rare time during the pandemic that anyone with the city had publicly identified a long-term care facility with reported COVID-19 cases. Unlike Wyandotte and Johnson counties, which have been battling several outbreaks in nursing facilities — and identifying where the cases are — little has been known about the situation in KC.
Until Thursday evening, the health department would only release the number of facilities and a total number of cases in all of them — but without naming any.
“We normally don’t report individual cases that don’t reach an outbreak at a facility,” Archer said Thursday. “Because we want the facility to be working with us and not be worried about if they’ll be on the nightly news because there’s an outbreak of one case.”
The lack of information and transparency has frustrated residents and disappointed advocates for the aging.
Craig Eichelman, state director for AARP Missouri, said in some locations people over 80 are “six times more likely to die from this than others.”
That’s why state and city health officials must provide full transparency, he said.
“Just knowing the number of cases and the number of facilities, that doesn’t tell me anything,” Eichelman said. “They’re a public entity, there is no reason for it to be kept from the public.
“We have a serious problem in these facilities and we need to know where they are. We need to save lives and stop the spots before they get hot.”
For several weeks, as nursing homes and assisted living facilities in northeast Kansas were overwhelmed with COVID-19, many readers reached out to The Star wondering why they weren’t hearing about cases in Kansas City. After The Star asked for that information through a open records request, the city said state law prohibited them from releasing that information.
State laws pertaining to privacy and health information “require that medical information released by the Kansas City Health Department only be in statistical aggregate form that precludes and prevents the identification of an individual, physician, or medical facility,” the city said.
Before Thursday, 10 long-term nursing care facilities in Kansas City had reported a total of 15 cases, said Michelle Pekarsky, spokeswoman for the Kansas City Health Department. Those cases included eight staff members and seven residents. No one has died.
Across the country, states and county health departments have faced the question on what to release during the pandemic. Families and advocates for the aging have pleaded for more information.
Some were transparent from the beginning. Others, like New York and Florida, refused for weeks then relented. Earlier this month, New York officials released the names of long-term care facilities that have had more than five deaths due to the coronavirus.
Ann Bickel, board member of the Missouri Coalition for Quality Care, said she was “cheered on” when several states became more transparent and identified the facilities with COVID-19. But she doesn’t have high hopes for the Show-Me state.
“I think they should be telling the public where these outbreaks are,” Bickel said. “I think it’s important for the public to know.”
But, she said, “Missouri is not a state that is readily going to give you this information. It’s just not in their DNA.”
The state, which has 79 long-term care facilities that have reported coronavirus outbreaks of two or more cases, has denied a request by The Star for a list of facilities, citing privacy laws.
But Missouri isn’t alone in that. States such as Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania also have not identified facilities with the virus.
AARP and other groups that work with the aging population advocate for daily public reporting from every state, with information including the names of the long-term care facilities with COVID-19.
In the Kansas City area, many counties — on both sides of the state line — have said which facilities have reported coronavirus cases.
Two long-term care facilities in Jackson County in Missouri have reported outbreaks, including a total of six deaths, according to the county health department.
As of May 1, The Parkway Senior Living in Blue Springs had a total of 19 cases and three people have died after testing positive with COVID-19. At Oak Grove Nursing and Rehab there have been 13 positive tests and three deaths.
On the Kansas side, after refusing for weeks to identify facilities, saying it was an issue of privacy, Johnson County’s director of the Department of Health and Environment released detailed information two weeks ago. Director Sanmi Areola told county commissioners later that he still doesn’t believe that information should be released, but “we have adjusted to the demand of the public” to provide it.
The county now updates the information daily.
Wyandotte County — where Riverbend Post Acute Rehabilitation has the state’s largest outbreak with 132 cases and 36 deaths — has provided daily updates for weeks.
In Platte County in Missouri, health officials sent out a release Tuesday evening when they had their first report of the coronavirus in a nursing home.
The department found out Monday evening that a resident tested positive. By Tuesday afternoon, staff members at Riverside Nursing and Rehabilitation Center were being tested.
Letting the public know about the case and which facility it was in was next — “just to be fully transparent,” said Natalie Klaus, public information officer for the Platte County Health Department.
As of Tuesday, Platte County has had a total of 72 cases of COVID-19 and no deaths.
“As a county that has not seen huge numbers, there are some folks who don’t believe it’s here and I think it’s important that they know that it is,” Klaus told The Star. “We just wanted people to be aware that it’s not going away, it’s still a threat.”
In Kansas City, the health department is working with McCrite Plaza to contain the virus. Officials are waiting for more test results to see the scope of the problem.
Archer said Thursday that if there is another outbreak of three or more cases, “we will share that with you.”
But advocates insist the public should know even if a facility has just one positive test.
“It can spread,” Bickel said. “If there’s one case in a facility, everyone should be tested.”
And, she said, some facilities may not be prepared with enough PPE and other resources if an outbreak occurs. That’s something that must be learned now at this stage of the pandemic.
“Everyone in the community and in the state should be focused on these nursing homes,” Bickel said. “It’s a teachable moment I believe. But it needs to be a transparent moment.”
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 3:27 PM.
