PA Vets Home Cited For Delayed Care

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A Pennsylvania nursing home for veterans has been cited for delayed care for a patient during the beginning of a deadly coronavirus outbreak that took the lives of 42 residents in the Chester County facility.
In a report made public this week state Health Department surveyors found that employees at the Southeastern Veterans Center in Spring City failed to followup on an X-Ray order "resulting in a delay in treatment."
The patient, the inspection records show, had been prescribed hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug highly touted by President Trump as a Covid-19 treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has subsequently withdrawn approval for emergency use of the drug on Covid-19 patients and warned of potentially fatal side effects in some patients.
In the report dated July 16, state Health surveyors said a physician had ordered a series of chest X-Rays for the patient on April 16, but the order was not carried out and a second X-Ray order was issued on April 19.
There was no record the treating physician was informed of the delay, the report states. The patient had been prescribed an antibiotic and Plaquenil, a brand name for hydroxychloroquine.
The inspection report describes Plaquenil as an anti-malarial drug that sometimes provides relief for arthritis.
The patient also suffered from hypertension, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and chronic kidney disease.
"The facility failed to follow-up in a timely manner resulting in a delay of treatment for Resident CL1," the report states.
Records show that the drug hydrochloroquine was in widespread use at the veterans center even as Covid-19 raced from patient to patient ultimately killing 42 of them.
According to a separate inspection of the 238-bed facility, two residents died on April 21, two days after delayed treatment began.
Officials of the state Department of Military Affairs did not respond Thursday to questions about the report including whether or not the patient, described only as CL1, survived.
In a response to the inspection report officials of the facility said that CL1 was no longer at the nursing home.
"CL1 no longer resides in the facility," the Plan of Correction states.
The response included a series of steps, includung audits, the nursing home promised to take to avoid future delays in treatment, particularly when X-Rays are ordered.
According to the report the unnamed patient was suffering from pneumonia, a partially collapsed lung and a lung condition called "patchy bibasilar."
The patient's records showed a rapidly escalating temperature peaking at 101.3 on the day the initial X-Ray order was written. Temperatures over 100 are a symptom of Covid-19
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