COVID-19 itself should be blamed for nursing home resident deaths, not the facilities housing them, David Gifford, MD, wrote for USA Today last week.
Dr. Gifford is the chief medical officer at the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living. He wrote the March 16 op-ed in response to the publication's "Dying for Care" investigation, which criticized the industry's response to the pandemic.
Dr. Gifford wrote the investigation does not aid patients or their family members in making the best choices for long-term care, as it had intended to do. He cited the research of independent researchers that found COVID-19 nursing home outbreaks were primarily caused by outbreaks in surrounding communities.
"Nursing home providers are committed to learning from this pandemic, but to suggest that our front-line heroes did not do enough to prevent these deaths fails to recognize the nature of this virus as well as how public health officials neglected to direct resources to where the most vulnerable people were living," Dr. Gifford wrote.