Queens nursing home resident dies of COVID after being denied vaccine
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One Middle Village nursing home has been criticized for vaccinating long term residents ahead of newer admissions. Photo via Google Maps
By Rachel Vick
A 66-year-old woman who was denied the COVID-19 vaccine at a Middle Village nursing home contracted the illness and died days later in a nearby hospital, her family said.
Vita “Tina” Fontanetta died on Jan. 23 at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center after getting COVID at Dry Harbor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, the New York Post reported Monday.
Fontanetta was admitted to the facility for rehab and was denied the vaccine because the nursing home was saving doses for permanent residents, Councilmember Robert Holden told the Post.
During a Council hearing last month, Holden said his mother also got COVID-19 after being denied the vaccine at Dry Harbor. The nursing home has been the site of 14 confirmed COVID deaths and 20 presumed deaths, according to state Health Department reports.
A person who answered the phone at the nursing home Monday said no one was available to talk and hung up. Nursing home administrators did not respond to additional requests for comment.
Last month, the Eagle reported on the uneven vaccine rollout and the lack of vaccine information at nursing homes across Queens.
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a former New York Economic Development Corporation official, told the Eagle his 90-year-old mother was unable to receive the vaccine at her Jamaica Hills nursing home, where less than a third of residents got their first shot when healthcare workers came to administer doses
“She should have been vaccinated in December,” Weisenfeld said. “It's inexcusable. If someone doesn’t want it that’s their problem, but give it to the people who want it and need it.”
Queens nursing homes have the highest number of COVID deaths of any county in the state with 470 confirmed deaths and 513 assumed, according to data from the State Department of Health.
But those numbers are likely much higher, according to a report issued last week by New York Attorney General Letitia James. An investigation by her office found that the state has drastically underreported COVID-19 deaths.
The report also found that Gov. Cuomo's directives to nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients contributed to the wave of illness in long-term care facilities.
“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York unnecessarily suffered at such an alarming rate,” James said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that healthcare workers, nursing staff and the Health Department “did the best they could” in the early days of the pandemic.
