Carmel Richmond Health Care and Rehab Center closes unit to visitors amid COVID-19 outbreak

Photo shows the entrance to the Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Dongan Hills on Friday, April 17, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/ Paul Liotta)
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Carmel Richmond Health Care and Rehabilitation Center in Dongan Hills shuttered one of its units to visitors this week amid an outbreak of COVID-19 cases.

A letter posted Monday by ArchCare, the Archdiocese of New York’s healthcare system that runs the facility, indicated that the organization “learned that one or more of our residents developed COVID-19.”

“We are actively monitoring our residents for signs and symptoms of COVID-19 and are working with our local and state health departments,” the letter said, which added that remote options for visiting are still available, including phone, email and Skype.

Scott La Rue, ArchCare’s CEO, said six separate cases have been recorded among one isolated unit.

“As per regulation, we anticipate the unit will be closed to visitors while testing is complete,” said La Rue. “After negative tests are received for the unit, visitation will re-open in the unit over the next few days.”

Daniel Wiig, a Brooklyn resident whose uncle is undergoing rehab at Carmel Richmond, said his family visited the center this past weekend before his parents were turned away Monday afternoon due to the outbreak.

Wiig said his uncle has since been diagnosed with COVID-19.

“The doctor has said he is doing very well,” Wiig said during a phone interview with the Advance/SILive.com, adding that his uncle has been receiving monoclonal antibody treatment since the diagnosis. “They tested him [Monday] night, and they made the determination then and quickly put him on this treatment.”

New York State Health Department guidance indicates indoor visiting can resume after an outbreak if testing reveals no additional COVID-19 cases in other units of a facility.

“If the first round of outbreak testing reveals one or more additional COVID-19 cases in other areas/units of the facility (e.g., new cases in two or more units), then facilities should suspend indoor visitation for all residents (vaccinated and unvaccinated), until the facility meets the criteria to discontinue outbreak testing,” the state’s latest guidance reads.

The site has recorded 85 confirmed or presumed COVID-19-related deaths of residents, the most of any long-term care facility on the borough, and was one of the first to report positive coronavirus cases during the early stages of the pandemic last year.

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