Investigation: Metro nursing home chain has 3 times state average of patients with COVID-19

ATLANTA — A nursing home chain at the center of a COVID-19 outbreak in Washington state has three locations in Georgia.

A Channel 2 Action News Investigation has found these nursing homes have more than three times the rate of COVID-19 cases than the state average.

Channel 2’s Michael Seiden spoke with two people from across metro Atlanta who say they’ve had very different experiences with the company.

After undergoing 10 surgeries on her right foot, Allison Hudson of Loganville turned to Life Care Center of Gwinnett, a nursing and rehabilitation facility located in Lawrenceville, where her surgeon ordered her to stay for at least six weeks.

[Continuing Coverage: Coronavirus Outbreak Special Section]

“When I say Life Care, what comes to mind? How would you describe it?” Seiden asked Hudson.

“I immediately get a pit in my stomach when you say that name to me,” Hudson said. “I had a horrible experience there.”

She sent us paperwork from her insurance company, showing how she entered the facility on New Year's Eve 2019.

But within hours of her arrival, she was on the phone with her husband and her doctor, planning her departure.

“There were people crying. They were screaming for their family members or nursing or doctors. The smell was horrendous. I started looking around the room. I saw mold on the bottom of the baseboards on the walls,” Hudson said. “I was needing the pain medication and antibiotics. They didn’t have it for me.”

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The following day, Hudson said she checked out and headed home to her husband.

But weeks later, the coronavirus pandemic hit, and Life Care Centers of America began making headlines.

One of its facilities outside Seattle, Washington, is now under state and federal investigation after authorities found a range of problems in how the facility handled the coronavirus outbreak.

“As filthy as that place was and the care those patients get, I’m not surprised at all," Hudson said.

The company's president, Beecher Hunter, talked about the COVID-19 pandemic in a video the company posted on Facebook.

“We must count on faith and hope to carry us through this coronavirus period of our lives,” Hunter said.

Right now, Life Care Centers of America is operating or managing more than 200 facilities nationwide, including three here in Georgia, where controlling the virus has been a major issue.

We checked the state's numbers and found May 21, 105% of Life Care Center of Gwinnett’s residents tested positive for COVID-19 and nearly 31% had died.

At Life Care Center of Lawrenceville, cases are at nearly 59% and deaths are almost at 20%.

At Camellia Gardens of Life Care in Thomasville, cases are at 93% and deaths at nearly 21%.

The state's average cases at nursing homes are nearly 19% and deaths are at 3%.

Seiden contacted Life Care Centers of America for comment on this story. A spokesperson responded to the latest numbers in a statement, writing in part:

"The safety and well-being of our residents remain our highest priority. Since the notification of our first positive case of COVID-19, we have been committed to taking care of our residents who have tested positive for COVID-19.”

“I think they’re doing what they can," said Willie Miller, whose mother has been a resident of Life Care Center of Lawrenceville since 2018.

Miller said he hasn't hugged his mother since the pandemic began.

“They’re all isolated in their room. They’re eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in their rooms,” Miller said.

Instead, he stands outside a glass window where he talks to his mother.

“As far as Life Care of Lawrenceville, once again those numbers will bother anyone. However, I think they’re doing a great job," Miller said.

When asked how a nursing home could have 105% of cases, the Department of Public Health told Seiden that the number includes cases for anyone who ever tested positive at the facility even if they died or went to the hospital.

100 infected, 10 dead as coronavirus sweeps through Atlanta nursing home Channel 2?s Justin Wilfon confirmed the Georgia National Guard was called in to the clean the Legacy Transitional Care and Rehab facility on Auburn Avenue in northeast Atlanta, where more than 100 patients have tested positive for COVID-19.

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