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Families of five veterans who died of COVID-19 at a Pennsylvania nursing home have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the facility, claiming it did not adequately protect its residents from contracting the disease.
The lawsuit names the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA), Southeastern Veterans’ Center (SEVC), Rohan Blackwood, and Deborah Mullane as defendants. The DMVA operates the Southeastern Veterans’ Center.
On March 6, at the same time Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf issued an emergency stay-at-home order near the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued guidelines for the inspection of nursing facilities, the lawsuit says.
Among those guidelines were the suspension of all “regular” on-site facility inspections — even for those that had previous citations for infection-control regulation violations, the lawsuit claims. The guidelines also limited “complaint-based inspections” to situations in which a nursing home “was putting a resident in ‘immediate jeopardy.’”
Three days later, the Southeast Veterans’ Center was placed on lockdown, the lawsuit says, and visitors were no longer allowed in the building.
On March 18, and again on March 31, families of the nursing home’s patients were told there were no active cases of COVID-19 at the facility.
“However, all throughout the month of March, as the virus began to spread across the world, SEVC still forced residents to eat in the cafeteria together,” the lawsuit alleges. “Even residents who began showing symptoms of COVID-19 were brought into the cafeteria to eat with other residents, thus, exposing the greater group of residents.”
In addition, SEVC allegedly was not providing adequate personal protective equipment to staff, meaning employees on the floors with infected patients were given only surgical masks. Even then, the lawsuit says, they were only given one mask for every five shifts.
Administrators at the nursing home, who themselves were using N95 masks, allegedly told staff not to wear the surgical masks near residents, however, “because it would scare” them.
SEVC notified families April 4 that at least one resident had tested positive for COVID-19, the lawsuit says. The cafeteria was closed, but small recreation rooms were opened on each floor to allow residents to eat together.
Families only learned of deaths at the nursing home thanks to a Philadelphia Inquirer report that at least 10 residents had died after being infected with coronavirus.
During an investigation called for by officials, SEVC staff disclosed that the nursing home had falsified documents, failed to isolate COVID positive residents, intimidated staff, and improperly tested both residents and staff, the lawsuit says.
Blackwood, Southeast Veterans’ Center commandant, and Mullane, the nursing home’s director of nursing, were suspended in May after The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on internal documents that revealed a high number of coronavirus deaths — up to four per day — at the nursing home.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages and a jury trial.
Do you know someone who has died of COVID-19 while they were a resident in a nursing home? Leave a comment below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Robert F. Daley and D. Aaron Rihn of Robert Peirce & Associates PC and Daniel C. Levin of Levin Sedran & Berman LLC.
The Nursing Home Veterans COVID-19 Deaths Lawsuit is Ian Horowitz, et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-06369, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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6 thoughts onVeterans’ Families File Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over COVID-19 in Nursing Home
My mother died in Isabella in New York. The nursing home was on the news for their handling of the residents, and under reporting their numbers. She was in the home for rehabilitation. Not serious medical condition.
My grandpa passed away Friday morning from Covid – within an hour of us being informed he had taken a turn for the worse. He had been taken the the ER but then release back to the nursing home.
my farther died of covied in nursing home in Tacoma Wash.
Add me plz
Add me
Add me. My father died in a nursing home in Indiana. I don’t know it was covered. We waiting for the day the antibiotic was developed. On the day it did, my dad died.