Nursing Home On Queens-LI Border Reports 53 Coronavirus Deaths

GLEN OAKS, QUEENS — The Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care & Rehab has the most COVID-19 deaths of any Queens nursing home, according to state health department data.

The 527-bed nursing home, which is located on the Long Island Jewish Medical Center campus but is independent of the hospital, reported 53 deaths related to the new coronavirus as of Wednesday, the data shows.

Of all the New York City nursing homes included in the state data, Parker Jewish is second only to Brooklyn's Cobble Hill Health Center in terms of the reported number of nursing home residents who have died due to the coronavirus. At least 55 residents of the Cobble Hill nursing home died of the virus, according to the data.

Lina Scacco, a spokesperson for Parker Jewish, said the nursing home has a higher number of deaths because they started testing for the coronavirus in early March.

"Because we were doing that so far in advance, it really speaks to who we are as an organization, since we’ve been around for an extremely long time," Scacco said by phone. "We have a frailer and more complicated and more complex population. They are very vulnerable to any type of viral illness that could be fatal to them because of their co-morbidities."

Parker Jewish has maintained high ratings for quality of care from the state Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services over the last several years, according to inspection records and public quality measures.

But an unnamed nurse told the Daily Beast that the pandemic has strained the facility and that its death toll is even higher than the number reported in the state data. The nurse said they reused protective equipment and some nurses even wore trash bags as gowns at the end of March, according to the Daily Beast report.

Scacco, the spokesperson, denied that nurses wore trash bags and that the nursing home is short on personal protective equipment.

"Everyone here has what they need to carry out the mission," she said.

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