Oswego Nursing Home Says 14 Coronavirus Cases In Residents, Staff

OSWEGO, IL — The Symphony at the Tillers nursing home told Patch on Friday that 10 of its residents had been confirmed to be infected by the new coronavirus. Six of those residents are currently in isolation at the Oswego facility at 4390 IL-71, while four others have been hospitalized. Four Symphony staff members were also confirmed to have contracted the virus, for a total of 14 cases in the facility. No deaths have yet been reported by the facility.

Three of the residents with coronavirus — two currently in isolation and one in the hospital — were recently transferred to Oswego from sister site Symphony of Joliet, a PR representative for the Symphony Care Network named Natalie Bauer Luce told Patch via email. Luce is the executive vice president for Crisis Communications Chicago, the public relations firm which the Symphony Care Network recently hired to handle its coronavirus messaging.

Symphony of Joliet reported several dozen cases of coronavirus and more than 20 deaths earlier this week.

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Concern over potential coronavirus spread at Symphony at the Tillers was first brought to Patch's attention on Wednesday by a staff whistle-blower, who asked to remain anonymous. The staff member said they were concerned by what they saw as a lack of transparency from Symphony management. They told Patch on April 22 that they knew some Symphony residents in Oswego had the coronavirus as early as two weeks ago, despite the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) not reporting any coronavirus cases in Kendall County nursing homes as of April 19.

"Me and my friends keep an update on the [IDPH nursing home page] and it was the night before last night, we looked and we were like, 'why isn't Symphony [at the Tillers] on it?'" the staff member said Wednesday.

IDPH Communications Manager Melaney Arnold told Patch that the page tracking nursing homes is updated weekly, so it could be that Symphony at the Tiller's cases simply haven't been added yet. Luce insisted that the Symphony Network has been in regular contact with IDPH regarding their coronavirus situation.

"The company is reporting extensively into the public health authorities, and we are on our own self-reporting numbers ... so the commentary about not reporting numbers is not accurate," Luce said.

However, the anonymous whistle-blower also said that some senior members of the Oswego facility's staff had been dishonest to lower-ranked co-workers about the coronavirus situation. They said a senior staff member had told them that the transferred residents from Joliet had been tested for coronavirus prior to their move-in, but later walked back that statement.

"One of the clinical nurses ... she told us [the former Joliet residents had been tested], and then about a week went by and one of my friends who worked back in that hall [with the former Joliet residents] as a certified nursing assistant said 'there's something wrong with these residents. They're all coughing and feverish. I'm betting you they never tested them,'" the staff member said. "And then our first COVID case came up positive ... and then [internal] articles started coming out and saying [management] just assumed those residents were healthy."

Patch could not verify the anonymous staff member's claims regarding the former Joliet residents. However, prior to April 24 Patch also received no news releases about an Oswego coronavirus outbreak from the Symphony Network, nor found any independent news articles regarding an outbreak of coronavirus at Symphony at the Tillers.

"There's now two Symphonies with bad outbreaks; it wouldn't really surprise me if they're hiding this," the whistle-blower said.