Thirteen homes were cited a dozen times or more. One, Rego Park Nursing Home in Queens, recorded 24 violations, for incomplete inspections, missed cleanings and inadequate monitoring, among other infractions. The home’s management did not respond to requests for comment.
Another home, Eger Health Care and Rehabilitation Center on Staten Island, which was cited 10 times in that span, was discovered last month to have Legionella in the water systems throughout its building, as first reported by The Staten Island Advance. At least one person got sick as a result, state officials said.
That resident was treated in the nursing home and has since fully recovered, said Jon Goldberg, a spokesman for ArchCare, the health care system of the New York Archdiocese — which is seeking regulatory approval to assume management of the home.
“The due diligence process revealed that past practices for the management of Legionella at Eger were not up to the level of ArchCare’s other facilities,” Mr. Goldberg said, adding that Eger had installed a continuous chemical treatment to improve its water monitoring processes.
In all, 43 nursing homes have been fined a total of $164,000 since 2015, and they have paid about $120,000 of that amount. The home that incurred the most fines — more than $13,000 — was Hudson Pointe at Riverdale Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation in the Bronx, records show. A representative of the nursing home did not respond to a request for comment.
Although cases of Legionnaires’ disease can be serious, deaths stemming from it are rare and infections occur infrequently. Over the past dozen years, there have been, on average, about 325 cases per year in New York City, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. A vast majority of outbreaks are not traced to cooling towers but to other structures or devices that can create conditions favorable for Legionella growth, such as hot tubs, humidifiers and hot water tanks. And most nursing homes have not been cited for failing to keep their towers clean.
Still, the violation histories of the homes were cause for concern among experts, who cited the vulnerability of their older and ailing populations to life-threatening infections.
