PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — With 71 COVID-19 cases and 14 deaths linked to Brighton Gardens of Prairie Village, the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment is now intervening in a situation that officials call "critical.”
Barbara Mitchell, department spokeswoman, wrote in a response to questions from the 41 Action News investigators that “due to the apparent inability of Brighton Gardens to sufficiently control and manage the situation, immediate action is required by its national owner to avoid further spread".
The response also said that JCDHE director Dr. Sanmi Areola notified Brighton Gardens on Monday that an improvement plan must be “immediately implemented.”
“If they fail to do so, the county’s local health officer, Dr. Joseph LeMaster, has authority to compel compliance,” the response stated. “The CDC, The Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services (KDADS), along with members of our own Department of Health and Environment, have conducted scheduled and unannounced visits and met with local management to discuss strict infectious disease protocols."
Brighton Gardens is owned by Sunrise Senior Living, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in suburban Washington, D.C.
That company operates 325 facilities nationwide.
Despite that fact, the Johnson County Health Department has delivered cases of personal protective equipment to Brighton Gardens and sourced gowns, which are expected to soon arrive at the facility.
The health department also is conducting continuous testing at the facility and the statement said it will continue to do it "until it's deemed unnecessary.”
A statement released Monday from Sunrise Regional Vice-President of Operations Denise Falco, said, "Our heart goes out to every family that has been impacted by this pandemic. We recognize that COVID-19 has presented both our families and our community with significant challenges.”
The statement also said that the Brighton Gardens community now has sufficient PPE supplies.
It also said the facility is following CDC guidelines to screen staff members before each shift and that additional staff has been brought in to Brighton Gardens to fill shifts of staff who are unable to work.
The demands from JCDHE come despite comments from Sunrise outlining steps taken at Brighton Gardens and their other facilities in the past few months.
Starting in February, we significantly expanded the program to continue to protect the health and safety of our communities and fight the spread of this virus. These measures include:
· Providing full personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, goggles/face shields and gowns. Our team is wearing masks throughout the community and we’re supporting residents in wearing masks, where tolerated, while receiving care as well.
· Prohibiting non-essential visitors.
· Implementing rigorous screening protocols to identify potential symptoms of illness among residents and team members.
· Restricting new resident move-ins.
· Shifting to individual resident engagement activities.
· Ceasing communal dining and delivering meals to each resident’s suite to promote social distancing.
We are taking each and every presumptive and confirmed case extremely seriously. In any community with a positive diagnosis, we are:
· Hiring professional cleaning services to manage sanitation of the building.
· Communicating with each resident, physician and family to coordinate care and personal needs.
· Providing timely updates to team members, residents, and families about confirmed cases.
The response to the 41 Action News Investigators concluded by stating the Brighton Gardens team "is working to maintain as much normalcy as possible for our residents and families despite the situation.”
