For facility managers in healthcare facilities, working with an organization's infection control staff to do everything possible to prevent healthcare-associated infections is a high priority. Still, facilities and occupants can suffer the consequences of such infections.
A long-term care center in Wanaque, N.J., where 10 children have died from a fast-spreading virus was not equipped to quarantine infected patients, according to the Herald Mail.
The Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation did not have room to isolate the children when they became ill in the facility’s ventilator unit, according to the state's health commissioner.
Twenty-seven children have been sickened by the adenovirus virus. All of the children were on ventilators and had compromised immune systems.
The cause of the outbreak and the reason the virus spread among the children remain unknown, state health officials says. But a worker at the Wanaque Center has blamed "filthy" conditions and mismanagement, according to NJ.com.
The worker said the conditions at the facility have contributed to the outbreak and described dirty rooms, rusty equipment, mold, poor maintenance and managers apparently indifferent to concerns raised by staff for years.
Cathryn Jakicic is healthcare industries editor of FacilitiesNet.com. For more information on hospital campuses and other medical facilities, click here.
