The Trump administration announces new efforts to protect nursing homes amid the pandemic; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma joins 'Fox & Friends.'
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hhs will be distributing an
additional five dollars billion from the
provider relief fund to all
nursing homes.
I want to send a message, ofport
and hope to every senior citizen
who has been dealing with the
struggle of isolation in what
should be the golden years of
your life.
We will get to other end of that
tunnel very quickly. We hope
Steve theres, the president
last night, during his briefing
talking about new measures aimed
a at helping nursing, home and
long term facility residents
from Covid,
the administrator for the
centers for Medicare and
Medicaid services. Seema Verma
is in charge of overseeing those
facilities at the federal level
shes also on the coronavirus
task force and, as you can see,
he joins us from d dot c
Seema Good morning to you
good Morning,
Steve over the last two nights.
The president has started with
some of the facts that a lot of
people have not heard and two
of the facts that a lot of
people dont realize the median
age of the deaths in the United
States from Covid e is seventy eight, which
is terrible and nearly half of
all the deaths. So far have been
in nursing homes and long term
care facilities.
So it really is important to
make sure that our most
vulnerable are protected as best
we can
thats exactly it, and there is just agreement,
and there is just agreement
across the task force, Dr Birx,
Dr Fauci, and all the others
that we need to double down the
on nursing homes.
We know the spread, has the
potential to get into the
nursing home and were starting
to see an uptick in cases.
So what the president announced
is that doubling down of effort
just last week, we announced that
were providing point of care
tests in all nursing homes.
That means a nursing home can
test all of their workers that
they need to even their
residents, and they can get
those test results within 5 15
minutes, and that means they can
then take the appropriate steps
to isolate patients,
and so also what were doing is
providing them an additional five dollars
billion and thats going to
help nursing homes with
supplies with staffing with
testing.
They can also use that money to
purchase technology so that you
know their residents can
communicate virtually we, their
loved ones,
Steve Sure-
and you know we know so much
more now than we did a couple of
months ago.
I mean thats just nature of
this kind of thing,
but in the beginning I remember
my niece Stephanie works in a
long term care facility and
they didnt have enough Ppe.
They didnt have any masks.
Nobody really had any masks at
that point
and in fact she would make
cloth masks for the other
nurses.
Now were to the point where
you know there is the proper
ppe where they do have the N95
masks and where our front line
workers are also protected,
thats exactly it
femas done an incredible job
and one of the things that weve
stood up in the middle of all of
this is a reporting system for
nursing homes,
so theyre, actually letting us
know when they need supplies
and were making sure that they
have what they need.
Fema has delivered millions of
masks and gowns.
I can tell you that ninety five percent of
nursing homes are reporting that
they have an adequate supply for
the next week and then what
were doing is the ones that are
reporting. They have issues
femas working with them
directly to make sure that they
have the supplies that they
need
Steve. You know, hindsight is
always twenty slash. Twenty Seema and I know
some people have suggested when
you look at the proportion of
people who are dying are so much
older, theyre in the long term
care theyre in the nursing
homes.
Maybe we didnt have to shut
down the entire economy. Maybe
we just had to protect the most
vulnerable, such as it is
now. We know that, but we are
reopening as well,
so this is really the direction
the administration is focusing
on now right,
thats, exactly it
and thats parking lot of the
overall strategy. The part of
the overall strategy is to focus
on the most vulnerable
were providing funding,
testing supplies to nursing
homes, making sure that they
have the technical assistance
that they need.
The president also talked about
strike teams that if we see
theres an uptick in cases in a
particular nursing home, we can
send an on the ground team of
experts to help that nursing
home get that spread under
control to make sure that
theyre doing everything they
can to keep their nursing home
residents. Safe.
Also think that these efforts
are really going to lead to just
better quality care in nursing
homes.
All of this attention, our
partnership with the states
around oversight of nursing
homes, is really going to
contribute to an increased
quality of care for nursing
homes across the country over
the long term.
So I think this goes beyond
coronavirus
Steve. So many of us have loved
ones and friends at long term
care facilities and nursing
homes, so its great that
theres so much attention being
paid to it right now,
Seema Verma. We thank you very.
Transcript generated on 2020-07-29.