Nursing homes see rise in empty beds
/
Vacancies in nursing homes in New York state have tripled in the past year. Photo via Google Maps.
By Jacob Kaye
Leaders in the nursing home and long term care field are warning that rapidly increasing vacancies in their facilities could spell doom for the industry and families who rely on their care.
A host of factors stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic have driven vacancy rates in long term care facilities and nursing homes in New York to historic highs, tripling from around 7 percent to 21 percent in the past year, according to Michael Balboni, the executive director of the Greater New York Health Care Facilities Association.
Without aid from the state, the vacancies could lead to facilities shutting their doors, leaving families in need of care without many options, according to Balboni.
“I think that what's going to happen eventually is that the families that need the services are going to rise up and say, ‘Wait a minute, what are you doing here? You know, other states have much better programs, much better investments, why aren't we doing it?’” Balboni said.
Despite the hole the industry faces, advocates and lawmakers say it’s only the consequences of the industry’s own actions.
Around 1,874 people in Queens nursing homes and adult care facilities are suspected to have died of COVID-19 in the past year, according to data collected by the Long Term Care Community Coalition. No other county in New York saw more deaths in these facilities than Queens.
While the death rate has contributed to the rise in nursing home vacancies, Balboni said a pause in the hospital-to-long term care pipeline, bad press and a population that’s naturally difficult to grow are equally to blame for the falling numbers.
“Another factor is that with all of the news stories and all of the proclamations by elected officials that in fact nursing homes were derelict in their protection of patients during the pandemic and how horrible it was to be in a nursing home,” Balboni said. “The fact that nursing homes were shut off from the world, in an effort to try to stem the spread of disease [led people] to say ‘I don't want to send my parents there, I don’t want my loved ones there.’”
One of those elected officials, Assemblyman Ron Kim, said exactly that.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Kim’s uncle died of suspected COVID-19 in a Flushing nursing home. In December, his father was recovering from surgery inside a New York hospital when it was suggested he go recover in a long term care facility, Kim said.
“He fought them persistently because he didn't trust the quality of care based on our own personal experiences that we dealt with in these facilities,” Kim said.
The rise in nursing home vacancies has industry leaders worried about the future of long term care while lawmakers, including Ron Kim, say change is needed. Photo by Karen Matthews/AP
The lawmaker began railing against New York nursing homes, which are majority private, for-profit facilities, and the industry as a whole for myriad reasons last year.
For Kim, the privatization of nursing homes and long term care facilities is to blame for any failure of the industry.
“The industry has extracted every dollar to pocket profits for their shareholders, the company's behind the nursing home,” Kim said, adding that, with the aid of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the industry did little to earn the trust of the public.
“They shielded people from coming into the facilities, they waived medical record keeping for 10 months, so we have no record of what they were doing inside,” he said. “Then they lobbied to get a blanket immunity, so they can't be prosecuted or held liable in a civil court. That is not acting in good faith.”
One thing both sides agree on is that the future of nursing homes and long term care facilities in New York is uncertain.
“The implications [of the increase in vacancies] remains to be seen,” said Richard Mollot, the executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition. “But the COVID-19 pandemic should be a wake up call to families and to policymakers that we are not getting, in too many cases, quality services and we're not getting value for money, as taxpayers.”
Balboni worries that in the near future, the nature of long term care will begin to evolve.
“People are beginning to really rethink this,” Balboni said. “The fact of the matter is nursing homes will always have a need but they haven’t been supported. So the question is, what are they going to look like?”
