Sagepoint Senior Living Services Releases Statement After State Reports 129 COVID-19 Cases and 33 Deaths at Facility

April 29, 2020

UPDATE: On 4/29/20 a report from the state of Maryland showed Sagepoint Nursing & Rehabilitation had 129 resident cases and 33 deaths and today the report shows 32 staff cases and 97 resident cases with 1 staff death and 34 resident deaths.

4/29/20: Governor Larry Hogan directed the Maryland Department of Health to publish data related to COVID-19 cases and fatalities associated with nursing homes, assisted living facilities.

Sagepoint Nursing & Rehabilitation reported having 129 cases of  COVID-19 and 33 deaths

Sagepoint Senior Living Services released the following Statement:

Losing just one resident to this virus is tragic. Tragic to the family and friends. Tragic to the staff who care for them every day and come to know them as family. As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said today, “COVID-19 as an efficient, effective predator that preys on the vulnerable, and the vulnerable are primarily elderly people with compromised immune systems. A nursing home is ground zero for this virus. Period.”

In a nursing home, this virus is frightening. We have always supported transparency and reported this information to the Maryland Department of Health. We have said the release of this information was a Maryland Department of Health’s decision. The Governor and Maryland Department of Health made the decision to release this information tonight. Our concerns continue to be over accuracy and fairness of reporting and the public health improvement it will bring.

We have supported universal testing of all residents and proactively fought hard to make testing happen with little support from any local or state agencies. As of the date of the universal testing, we had 6 known diagnosed cases. The testing resulted in 79 positive cases proving the asymptomatic spread of this virus. We believe we have saved lives because of what we did.

Less than 1% of the facilities in the State of Maryland have tested universally. Without this knowledge you cannot cohort patients and dedicate staff. Because the majority of the facilities in the State have not tested universally, there is no accuracy in these numbers, including ours.

Until the State of Maryland universally tests all nursing facilities as we did, we believe there is a continued risk to the safety and well-being of staff and residents. It is important to remember that this happened TO our facility. It is not something that WE caused. It’s something that happened TO us. And we have done our very best to manage the situation.

We will publicly push for universal testing in all facilities across the region as we have done privately thus far with the Maryland Department of Health because we believe it is the right thing to do. We are going to press on and provide the same outstanding level of care for our residents that we have for nearly half a century.

Sagepoint Senior Living Services released the following Video on 4/24/2020: