CareOne Nursing Homes Said They Could Safely Take More COVID-19 Patients. But Death Rates Soared.

CareOne struck a deal to take COVID-19 patients from hospitals and made “COVID-capable” part of its branding. Now it has the highest rate of COVID-related deaths among large long-term care companies in New Jersey.

On Friday, March 20, the New Jersey Department of Health got an urgent call from a Catholic nursing home. COVID-19 was tearing through St. Joseph’s Senior Home in Woodbridge Township. At least a dozen of the nuns who worked at the facility had fallen ill, and they feared they didn’t have enough staff on hand to care for the residents.

Instead of sending in state inspectors to assess the situation, health officials reached out to private care providers for help, and CareOne, one of the largest nursing home chains in New Jersey, said it would assist. When nurses from the company arrived at St. Joseph’s on Sunday afternoon, they found just three nuns trying to manage almost 90 residents. The company sent a report to the state on Monday, and the following day, state officials took the extraordinary step of ordering St. Joseph’s to evacuate.

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