SAN ANTONIO – District 2 Councilwoman Jada Andrews-Sullivan said the use of a Dignowity Hill nursing home as a quarantine site should be the last East Side location used for the response to COVID-19.
“This is as much as we can take. We can’t take on anything else within this one district,” Andrews-Sullivan said to KSAT Wednesday.
The River City Care Center on Nolan Street has been emptied of its usual residents and is now serving as a quarantine location for residents of any area nursing homes who test positive for COVID-19. There are two patients staying there so far.
The drive-thru testing site and an alternative care center to help with potential hospital overflow are also located on the East Side at Freeman Coliseum.
“We know that other communities within the city are not seeing the same thing. So we shouldn’t have to have all of the brunt of it here in District 2,” Andrews-Sullivan.
The use of the River City Care Center is at the heart of a plan to help separate elderly, at-risk patients and avoid having a cluster of infections develop like at the Southeast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Westover Hills Rehabilitation and Healthcare near State Highway 151 and Hunt Lane was originally going to be a second quarantine site but pulled out of the plan.
While Andrews-Sullivan released a statement on Friday supporting the use of River City, she says that was when she believed it would be an alternate site.
Patients began arriving at River City over the weekend, and the city confirmed Tuesday that Westover Hills was pulling out of the plan entirely. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said that was due to “intense scrutiny and frankly political backlash.”
Westover Hills pulls out of plan to house COVID-19 patients
“So we went from being an alternative to now we’re receiving patients to now we’re the only one,” Andrews-Sullivan said.
Andrews-Sullivan said she has heard concerns from neighbors who are concerned about the possibility of more COVID-19 cases popping up because of the facility and has heard complaints of protective protective equipment being left on the ground.
Andrews-Sullivan said she is working on arranging a meeting with officials and some of the worried residents so they can hear more details on what’s being done and how it came about.
Westover Hills and River City are owned by the two largest nursing home operators in San Antonio, Keystone Care, LLC and Solutions in Healthcare.
Solutions in Healthcare President and CEO Gary Blake said he picked River City over the company’s other four Bexar County facilities for the quarantine site because it had the fewest patients and therefore would be easier to get the facility ready.
Blake said he had heard about the concerns with PPE being left on the ground nearby and said the masks are different than what the staff uses on site. However, he also said the issue has been addressed with staff and he walked the perimeter of the building on a visit to the site Wednesday.
Blake believes the employees at River City will be able to keep the virus contained at the facility.
“I would tell anyone, encourage anyone, to read the CDC guidelines and understand how it is - how it does spread,” Blake said. “It’s not going to creep out of the nursing home. It’s not going to walk down the street. So I would encourage - we’re using the proper PPE, we’re disposing of it, we’re training our staff, we’re - that is ongoing.”
While Blake said he understood where Westover Hills was coming from in pulling out, he said River City would continue to be used as a quarantine site.
“I will tell you, I’ve been shocked by how much negativity there’s been about a company and employees trying to step up and do the right thing to help protect the most vulnerable people in a community,” Blake said.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March.
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