Health
A person walks across the frame in front of a short set of stairs leading to the entrance of Laguna Honda Hospital. The hospital — a 780-bed facility on 62 acres in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks neighborhood — is facing challenges in fulfilling a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandate to move out all patients by Sept. 13, 2022, before it can apply to the centers for recertification.

Laguna Honda Hospital Has to Self-Destruct to Survive

07.20.2022
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Administrators are overhauling policies and procedures to regain federal funding that is set to expire following the issuance of multiple damning inspection reports at Laguna Honda Hospital. They have until Sept. 13 to implement changes, which include a requirement to transfer or discharge all patients, before they can apply for recertification from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Civic” Podcast
Long-term care advocates in front of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Long-Term Care Residents Need Visitation to Thrive, Advocates Say

03.12.2021
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On the sidewalk in front of the San Francisco Department of Public Health on Thursday morning, a dozen or so activists stood holding yellow signs reading “Isolation kills, too!” Julie Schneider, the field service coordinator for the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, was one of these advocates for residents of facilities like nursing homes, who have been calling for in-person visitation in long-term care to resume promptly. “Civic” spoke with Schneider and volunteer ombudsman Richard Correia at the demonstration. “If you spend enough time around people that are in the end stages of their life, there are things that keep them going. And then there are times when, you know, they lose the will,” Correia said. One of those things is seeing loved ones, he said.

Coronavirus

Nonprofit Brings COVID-19 Vaccines to Seniors

03.05.2021
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Self-Help for the Elderly, has stepped in not just with advocacy for improved access to vaccines, but by bringing doctors who can administer vaccines to the seniors who need them at community centers they already visit. President and CEO Anni Chung joined “Civic” to share how the organization has been vaccinating the seniors it serves.

Coronavirus
U.S. Army Spc. Sterling Hutcheson, a medic with the Colorado National Guard Joint Task Force Test Support, prepares to swab a nursing home resident during COVID-19 testing in Rocky Ford, Colo. on May 29, 2020.

Nursing Homes to Get Vaccines Soon Through Major Pharmacy Chains

12.22.2020
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Vaccines are arriving in California and doses will be administered at nursing homes soon through a government partnership with pharmacy giants CVS and Walgreens, whose staffs will deliver vaccines to long term care facilities. Eric Dowdy, chief government affairs officer at Leading Age California, an organization representing mostly nonprofit senior care facilities, said the top priority for those planning the vaccine rollout is combating misinformation that fuels mistrust in the vaccine.

Elections
A registered nurse with the Florida Department of Health explains the process of specimen collection to a nursing home resident in Northeast Florida, May 1, 2020.

Senior, Disability Advocates Mobilize to Ensure Care Facility Residents Vote

10.23.2020
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The coronavirus pandemic has transformed elections, and for people who live in residential care facilities like nursing homes, that may be creating barriers to participation. Last week, organizers with Senior and Disability Action called together advocates and experts to lay out what rights these residents have and how to ensure they are able to exercise them.