In November, Hillcrest had a complete record of Commons: not a single confirmed coronavirus infection.
Its parent company, nonprofit Berkshire Healthcare Systems, puts up daily numbers for each of its 18 facilities. As of November 18, the Hillcrest Conns Nursing and Rehabilitation Center was at zero, zero, zero.
“Looking at the data and history data, it looks like the first positive cases were staff members,” says Patricia Farley-Bowier, who represents Pittsfield in the state legislature.
He says that after that initial case, the virus broke out within a few days. It went from two residents to 93 in just one week. Most residents soon became infected.
“That’s 166 residents out of 224,” he says. “And so about 74% of that feature has tested positive. It’s amazing.”
As of Wednesday, 171 Hillcrest residents had tested positive and 31 had died. 76 of the staff tested positive. There have been other outbreaks of senior living facilities this fall, but the Hillcrest Cons seems to be the most formidable.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the outbreak. “To know and point out what a sentinel event is, I don’t know if we know it,” says Lisa Goudett, vice president and spokeswoman for Berkshire Healthcare. “But I think we know that when we see a community spread out in a community, and those communities have nursing homes, and workers live in those communities, we’ll see our residents translate into that community.”
During the many nursing home outbreaks this spring, it became clear that coronavirus levels in the area around the nursing home, and where staff live, were a major factor.
In Pittsfield, there has been an increase in cases of coronavirus in the past month, said Dr. Massachusetts, chairman of the city health board. Says Alan Coulberg.
They say, “Around Halloween, there was at least one big party that was mostly unmasked people,” and I don’t remember exactly how many people at that party were infected but many did, and they started spreading the virus on their own social media. To people in circles. “
At least two other gatherings at local restaurants also led to major clusters, he says. The case reached the skies, and the virus entered Hillcrest Conns. Dr. Coulberg can’t say for sure whether staff or visitors – or both – brought him inside.
They say, “We know there were a lot of employees who had the virus,” and the prevailing thinking is that many of these employees, as a result of their own social connections, fell ill outside the organization, and then brought it. Illness in the facility. “
However once it got there, once the virus came in, it stuck to all the steps of infection control, like personal protective devices and hand hygiene.
The virus does not infect any prisoners. He is relentless in his search for the next body he wants to infect.
Lisa Gaudet. Berkshire Healthcare Systems
The local paper, Berkshire Eagle, is covering this outbreak closely and reports that Hillcrest Consons has received low, one-star ratings from federal regulators, and low quality scores are associated with a higher risk of infection.
But Lisa Gaudet of Berkshire Healthcare says the facility has repeatedly undergone recent state inspections to investigate appropriate defenses against coronavirus.
“His last infection control survey before the outbreak of his epidemic in July by the state health department. They say they were lacking on it.” “Last week they had another one. The same thing. So their practices are strict.”
How to explain how the virus was spread by Hillcrest Cons Mans?
“I don’t have a big answer for that,” says Gaudet. “I think that’s the only answer we’re all struggling with across the state: why is it spreading so fast, so fast, and how are so many people finding themselves in this situation?”
State Representative Patricia Ferley-Bouvier says she and others will continue to get answers about what went wrong in Hillcrest Cons. She says she is very concerned about Hillcrest residents and staff, and “at the same time, I am concerned about residents, their families and employees.” Next Nursing home. “
The outbreak in nursing homes in Massachusetts this spring was so common and fatal that nearly two-thirds of the state’s people who died from COVID-19 lived in it. State and long-term care industry officials say they have learned a lot about how to fight the virus, but they don’t feel safe that they can expose it everywhere.
On her Facebook page this week, Furley-Bouvier posted about the Hillcrest eruption, and relatives of some of the residents wrote that they were terrified for their loved ones. The WBUR reached out to them but no one has responded yet.
Furley-Bouvier posted that he saw a “straight line” between social gatherings in Pittsfield and Hillcrest’s deaths. Some commenters wanted to be held accountable, while others sought to be “ashamed and guilty.”
Lisa Goudett of Berkshire Healthcare, says to offer sympathy and support to staff members who walk through the door every day despite the risk, and to the personal loss of residents when they fall ill and die.
“Perhaps this same epidemic has taught us that we need to live for one another in the moment of our greatest need. And for our residents and our staff at Hillcrest, it is now,” he says.
Goudet says Hillcrest seems to be the outbreak of Commons. Positive tests have slowed down in trouble.
But one of the company’s other facilities, the Kimball Farms Nursing Care Center in nearby Lennox, also had a recent outbreak, in which several dozen residents and staff have been infected so far. Eight residents have been killed.
“The virus does not infect any inmates,” Gaudet says. “He’s relentless in his search for the next body he wants to infect.”
