A Northern California nursing home hit hard by a deadly outbreak of the coronavirus is a highly rated facility. But even with a good track record, it wasn’t prepared to combat the virus when it arrived.
It is the deadliest nursing home outbreak in Northern California and among the worst COVID-19 clusters in the state.
At least 17 people died and dozens of staff members got infected after a housekeeping employee tested positive April 2 and was the first confirmed to have the virus at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital, a nonprofit nursing home in Woodland that received high marks from inspectors and a national accreditation bureau, the Sacramento Bee reported Saturday.
“We put him there thinking he would be safe,” said Donna Scully, whose 71-year-old father was the fifth person at the facility to have died from COVID-19 complications. “And he wasn’t.”
Interviews and emails reviewed by the newspaper reveal nursing home and county health officials struggled behind the scenes to curb the virus. The documents detail a frantic, sometimes slapdash effort to ramp up testing at the nursing home and roll out ever-changing rules from California’s health department.