Pulse Ox Battery Dies, So Does Patient; ‘Scary’ Masks in Nursing Home; COVID Gag Orders

Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.

Pulse Ox Battery Dies, So Does Patient

A COVID-19 patient died at a Denver-area hospital in May after understaffing issues led to a pulse oximeter’s dead battery going unreplaced, according to the Denver Post.

A technician at North Suburban Medical Center alerted a nurse about the battery issue, but that nurse was busy attending to a patient in alcohol withdrawal who needed close monitoring. The technician didn’t realize the pulse oximeter hadn’t been fixed for more than a half hour because she, in turn, was busy with 46 other patients, the Post reported.

The technician alerted the nurse again, but she still wasn’t able to get to the patient for another 10 minutes. By that time, the patient wasn’t breathing and attempts at resuscitation failed, according to the paper, which cited state inspection reports.

Five nurses and a doctor who worked at three Denver-area hospitals owned by HealthONE, a unit of Healthcare Corporation of America, told the Post anonymously that those hospitals have been understaffed, which has led to an increase in bedsores and infections, and a failure to provide basic hygiene care.

“Some things get missed, like showers and turning patients so they donʼt get pressure injuries,” one nurse told the paper.

Additionally, inspection records showed that four HealthONE facilities in the Denver area have been cited for insufficient care due to inadequate staffing.

Masks Scare Nursing Home Residents?

A Michigan nursing home where 19 residents died of COVID-19 didn’t allow staff to wear masks in the early days of the pandemic, the Detroit Free Press found.

One former employee said Jill Vankerschaver, the former director of nursing at Villages of Lapeer Nursing & Rehabilitation, went beyond words in implementing the policy.

“She said you have to take that off because basically you’re scaring the residents. The residents were asking why were we wearing masks,” Taylor Minifield told the Free Press. “She told me, ‘You have to take it off.’ She ripped it off my face and threw it right into, we have a trash can on our nurse’s cart, and threw it right in there, and walked off and didn’t care. And she told me, ‘If you have something to say, you can leave my building.'”

A report from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs declared the facility to be in “immediate jeopardy” on March 24, saying it failed to follow accepted infection control practices by not ensuring staff had access to personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks.

On that day, Vankerschaver told an occupational therapist to remove her face mask and said “she was not going to wear the mask in ‘her building.'” The next day, two nursing assistants were sent home for wearing their own face masks, according to the state report.

Vankerschaver told a state investigator that “we were checking temps and didn’t want to alarm the residents and we wanted to save these masks.” She also said she told one of the therapists and other staffers that they didn’t need to wear masks and that “the residents were getting upset.”

Vankerschaver resigned April 7, the day the facility’s “immediate jeopardy” status was lifted.

The facility’s deaths amounted to more than half of the 34 deaths in Lapeer County, according to the Free Press. It is currently facing three lawsuits — one from a family who lost a relative, and two from three former employees. Facility owners are Michael Davis and Thomas Davis, two doctors who are also brothers.

Companies’ COVID Gag Orders

Some American companies are banning employees from alerting other workers about coronavirus infections, Bloomberg reports.

Hundreds of U.S. employers have told workers not to share information about infections or have retaliated against them for doing so, according to the Bloomberg, which cited workplace complaints filed with the National Labor Relations Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Those employers include Amazon, Cargill, Delta, General Electric, McDonald’s, REI, Smithfield Foods, Target, Urban Outfitters, and others.

In an email, Delta told its 25,000 flight attendants to “please refrain from notifying other crew members on your own” about COVID-19 symptoms or diagnoses. At REI, an employee texted colleagues about his positive test results and was then told “not to tell anybody” and “to not post or say anything on social media.”

A manager of a Target in Shreveport, Louisiana, told workers about another employee who had tested positive, but said they were prohibited from talking about it on social media: “We want to make sure we get the right information out, and you know how once people start talking amongst themselves, the right information gets distorted, and the wrong information is coming out,” the manager said.

An Amazon employee from Staten Island, New York, who is suing the company, said when she tested positive, she was told by an HR representative, “don’t say nothing to nobody.”

The companies have generally disputed or denied the allegations.

More on FDA Comms Debacle

Politico takes a deeper look at Emily Miller, the FDA spokesperson ousted after only two weeks on the job.

Miller, most recently a private consultant, had been a reporter for the conservative One America News and worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republicans; she was also a prominent gun rights advocate, authoring a book in 2013 titled Emily Gets Her Gun: But Obama Wants to Take Yours.

Miller was placed in FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn’s office by the White House, which has long wished the agency would move faster to approve new COVID-19 products.

Staffers at the FDA were upset with the appointment. Traditionally, the role goes to a career civil servant, Politico reported. Some felt Miller’s lack of medical or science experience was a problem: “She couldn’t even pronounce convalescent plasma,” one official said.

Miller also got crosswise with officials in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) including its prickly communications director, Michael Caputo, according to Politico.

The breaking point came after Hahn, at a press conference with President Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, repeated their misleading claims of a 35% mortality benefit with convalescent plasma. Miller staunchly defended the figure, even while another communications adviser, an outside contractor named Wayne Pines, was urging Hahn to retract the claim, which he did.

HHS officials terminated Pines and, shortly afterward, Hahn booted Miller. Officially, HHS said Pines’ contract was canceled because it went against department policy, but another official told Politico that Pines’ advice to Hahn was the trigger.