11 Wanaque facility deaths due to more than poor hygiene, report says

Doctor admitted that he was barely aware of the crisis


While, inspectors initially blamed poor hygiene for the spread of a virus that killed 11 children at a Wanaque (N.J.) nursing home last fall, a federal report says the larger problem was that those in charge of the facility didn’t plan for an outbreak and didn’t respond fast enough when it happened, according to an article on the northjersey.com website.

The report describes the pediatric medical director of the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation as so disengaged that he didn’t know how many children were infected, or what exactly his job entailed, the article said.

A doctor admitted that he was barely aware of the crisis

The deficiencies in leadership “contributed to the delay in identification and containment of [the] adenovirus outbreak, affecting 33 residents [and] one staff, and resulted in 11 pediatric resident deaths,” the report said. 

Read the article.



March 11, 2019


Topic Area: Infection Control


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