Delaware is bolstering its efforts to deal with COVID outbreaks at Long-Term Care Facilities.
The state is adding a new position of Long-Term Care Medical Director. Internal and geriatric medicine specialist Dr. Susan Levy assumes that role starting next week.
Delaware Health and Social Services Secretary Molly Magarik says Levy will also be support the state Health Operations Center,
“In terms of providing technical assistance directly to facilities and also being a member of the team that can help us look at all of this data including long-term facility outbreaks and help us plan our robust response.”
Also the state Bureau of Identification is set to begin using federal CARES Act funding to process background checks and fingerprinting for long-term care facilities looking to hire new staff.
And Delaware is creating an incident response team composed of volunteers within the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services.
DHSS Secretary Molly Magarik says this group will go into facilities experiencing outbreaks to provide additional support to staff
“We know that our long term care facilities and the workers in those facilities are working very hard, but they too are struggling, and sometimes they are positive themselves and so they have to be out of work while the facility is managing outbreaks with residents.”
As of late last week, state health officials count five ongoing COVID outbreaks at long-term care facilities throughout the state.
To date 410 residents long-term care facilities in Delaware have died from the virus.
