Louisiana health officials say about a third of the nursing homes in the state are not regularly testing their staff and residents. State health officer Doctor Jimmy Guidry says facilities who fail to follow the state’s testing guidelines could be hit with sanctions.
“They won’t have new patients, they are in sanctions we can do in civil penalties and there are sanctions we can do by withholding payment,” said Guidry.
Guidry says they are asking nursing homes to conduct weekly tests on all of their residents and staff if there are known COVID cases in the facility. He says testing is a critical step in protecting people who are vulnerable to this disease.
“If you have no cases is that because you didn’t test or is that because you have no COVID, you still have to answer the question,” said Guidry.
The state failed to reach its goal to test all nursing home residents and workers by the end of May.
Guidry says also shares the concern of the governor and rest of the state health department in that the virus has shown it will not slow down just because it’s the summertime.
“If it hangs around until the fall and we don’t take this virus seriously, we will see a spike in the fall and we’ll see flu in the fall and it look very similar to what we saw in the spring, if not worse,” said Guidry.
Comments