13 houses have been cited dozens of times or more. One, Rego Park Nursing Home in Queens, recorded 24 violations, due to inadequate inspections, omissions of cleaning and inadequate supervision, among other violations. The home’s management did not respond to a request for comment.
Another home, the Eger Wellness and Rehabilitation Center on Staten Island, cited 10 times during that period, was discovered last month to have Legionella in its entire building’s water system, like first report by The Staten Island Advance. State officials say at least one person has fallen ill.
The resident was treated in a nursing home and has since made a full recovery, said Jon Goldberg, a spokesman for ArchCare, the health care system of the Archdiocese of New York.
Mr. Goldberg added: “The due diligence revealed that Legionella’s management practices at Eger were not on a par with other ArchCare facilities.
In total, 43 nursing homes have been fined a total of $164,000 since 2015, and they have paid about $120,000 of that. Records show that the home with the most fines – more than $13,000 – was Hudson Pointe at Riverdale Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in the Bronx. Representatives for the nursing home did not respond to a request for comment.
Although cases of Legionnaires’ disease can be serious, deaths from the disease are rare and infections occur infrequently. Over the past decade, there have been an average of 325 cases of the disease each year in New York City, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. The majority of outbreaks do not originate in cooling towers but are caused by other structures or equipment that may facilitate Legionella growth, such as hot tubs, humidifiers, and tanks. contain hot water. And most nursing homes have not been cited for failing to keep their towers clean.
However, the homes’ history of breaching worries experts, who say the vulnerability of their aging and ailing populations to life-threatening infections.
