Workers conducted drive-thru Covid-19 testing for one day on Saturday in Stoneham, Mass.
Photo: Allison Dinner/Zuma PressMassachusetts is asking some nursing homes to evacuate their elderly residents so the facilities can treat coronavirus patients, the newest effort to find places to treat the infected as their surging numbers begin overwhelming hospitals.
One nursing home in Worcester, the state’s second-largest city, has begun moving residents to other nursing facilities in the area. The state also said it is asking other homes to become dedicated sites for coronavirus treatment by similarly transferring residents.
“We understand this is not an easy thing to ask residents, families, and nursing facilities to do,” state Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said in a letter to nursing facilities Friday.
Private insurers and the state’s Medicaid program are coordinating to establish financing structures to support the effort, she said.
Other states have also begun eyeing nursing homes to relieve the strain on hospitals. New York told nursing homes Wednesday they are required to accept coronavirus-infected patients who are discharged from hospitals but may be still convalescing.
Indiana is considering a similar move, according to draft guidance viewed by The Wall Street Journal. State officials couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
Efforts to introduce coronavirus patients into the same facilities housing frail, vulnerable nursing-home residents have drawn strong objections from major nursing-home industry groups. Policies like New York’s, industry groups say, put nursing-home residents at risk of getting infected and dying.
New York has said that protecting nursing-home residents is a priority amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The Massachusetts Senior Care Association, which represents elder-care facilities in the state, said it supported the plan there—struck among the state, the Worcester nursing home and hospitals—because it will keep coronavirus patients and uninfected residents apart.
Residents from St. Joseph's Senior Home were helped on to buses in Woodbridge, N.J., last week to be transferred to a facility in Whippany after some residents tested positive for Covid-19.
Photo: Seth Wenig/Associated PressMatt Salmon, chief executive of Salmon Health and Retirement, which owns the Worcester, Mass., home that is evacuating residents, said the move was anguishing, but he couldn’t think of another solution that would avoid putting seniors at risk.
“My worst fear is having mass outbreaks in nursing homes across the state because we are required or need to take Covid-positive residents,” Mr. Salmon said in a video on Facebook. Covid-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Resident moves from the company’s Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester were underway over the weekend and expected to be completed by Wednesday, Mr. Salmon said.
The plan is for staff to stay on site to care for coronavirus-infected patients who are stable enough where they don’t need an acute-care hospital, but still need medical help such as oxygen.
Other states are taking a different tack. Louisiana, which has a rapidly growing number of Covid-19 patients and several outbreaks in elder-care facilities, said that nursing homes generally aren’t allowed to accept coronavirus-infected patients from hospitals.
Nursing homes may choose to take the patients, however, if their facilities meet certain requirements.
The American Health Care Association and AMDA, the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, said in a joint statement they opposed New York’s move as too dangerous for residents and preferred approaches like Louisiana’s, which involves cooperation between hospitals and nursing homes.
The two industry groups said states should work with nursing homes, and could move residents to create empty facilities for coronavirus patients.
Transferring nursing-home residents can also be dangerous, said Christopher Laxton, executive director of the long-term medicine society, which represents doctors who work in nursing homes.
Covid-19 has been spreading rapidly in nursing homes, resulting in large outbreaks and deaths across the U.S. There are cases in at least 147 nursing homes, according to the federal government, with clusters and deaths reported in elder-living facilities from Vermont to Florida.
At least 37 deaths have been tied to an outbreak in one Seattle-area nursing home, Life Care Center of Kirkland. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Saturday a new outbreak in a Carroll County nursing home has infected 66 residents.
Massachusetts had 4,257 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Saturday.
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Write to Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com and Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com
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