Inside The Final Days Of COVID-19, San Diego County Families Speak Out After Deaths
Speaker 1: 00:00 Mistakes, slow testing and poor care. These are some of the challenges local families encountered before their loved ones died of COVID-19. I knew source investigative reporter. Mary Plummer describes the problems inside one San Diego memory care facility. Beverly Nobert is walking through her home, pointing out family pictures. Speaker 2: 00:22 This is my father and my sister and I and Paul and his three grandchildren. That's my father up there playing the drums. Speaker 1: 00:31 Her father Lynn Nyberg had dementia. Beverly moved back into our childhood home here in Bay park to care for him a few years ago. But in April he died not of dementia, but of COVID-19. He was 83 years old. The story of what led to his death starts back in January. As dementia progressed, Lynn started staying up during the night, Beverly and her siblings decided to move him into assisted living at a place called stellar care near El Cerrito. It would be safer. They thought it was staffed around the clock. Beverly hoped it was the answer to her worries. Speaker 2: 01:06 I went to stellar and I thought, Oh my God, this place is beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's it's like a hotel. It's it's, it's a resort, Speaker 1: 01:16 But it wasn't what the family expected. Lynn took multiple falls and soon the facility recommended hospice care. The sudden decline surprised his children who felt they had left him there in relatively good health. Instead of transferring him to hospice at stellar in early April, Beverly and her brother drove him to the hospital. Lynn could barely walk here's Beverly. Speaker 2: 01:38 So we took him out of there and we took him up to UCS in LA Jolla and admitted him. Two days later, we found out he had COVID-19 and on the 20th of April, he died. It was that quick. Speaker 1: 01:51 Beverly doesn't know how, or when he caught the virus, the family had been visiting her dad often, but had to stop. When the pandemic hit. Beverly says the facility kept her in the dark about his worsening health records, stellar care provided tour show that his temperature wasn't monitored and no evidence of the falls he took. Beverly says the executive director told her residents taken to hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms were later returned to the facility. Speaker 2: 02:20 I don't know how many people have died. All I know is that she was telling me that she had sent people to the hospital cause she knew they were sick and the hospitals were turning around and sending them back. Speaker 1: 02:32 Care's executive director declined our interview request saying in an email, it was inappropriate to comment on residents and their situations. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 40% of deaths nationwide have been residents of nursing homes or other longterm care facilities. State records show 13 residents at stellar care have contracted the virus. Beverly is troubled by stellar is a lack of communication. She says she'd been told her dad would have been safer with her. She would have picked him up and brought him home. Speaker 2: 03:04 Once we pulled my father out of there, we've heard nothing from stellar, not even. I'm sorry that you've lost your father Speaker 1: 03:12 Back at her dad's house. Beverly is surrounded by reminders, his dog, who she now cares for his favorite chair and the music. He so loved Lynn, a former teacher in school counselor also played the drums, the trombone and the clarinet. Speaker 2: 03:27 Yeah. I've pulled out a lot of his records. I usually listen to Chicago a lot though, cause we both loved it. This is my dad. Speaker 1: 03:39 Beverly's hand goes to her heart, the memories flood back Speaker 2: 03:45 Down the street Speaker 1: 03:50 For KPBS. I'm my news source. Investigative reporter, Mary Plummer. This story was co reported by our new source reporter Roxanna Popescu I knew source is an independently funded nonprofit partner of KP. Speaker 2: 04:04 Yes.
