ALBANY — The state’s top coronavirus test lab is so overwhelmed by the mandated coronavirus testing in nursing homes that they’ve told counties to stop sending them shipments, The Post has learned.
Officials at the embattled state Health Department’s Wadsworth Center in Albany notified multiple county health officers they have reached capacity and are struggling to process the surge in tests.
The logjam comes one week after DOH started quietly increasing testing for nursing home residents, and following Gov. Cuomo’s announcement Sunday of a new executive order mandating that state-licensed nursing homes test staff twice a week.
Facilities are required to submit a plan to the state by Friday, May 15, and noncompliance will be met with license suspension, revocation or a $2,000 penalty per day.
Livingston County’s top health officer was denied shipments of up to 800 COVID-19 swabs on Wednesday, after officials told her the lab was experiencing a delay of “several weeks.”
“We’re honestly really at a loss. It places a large burden and it’s almost an impossible task,” county public health director Jennifer Rodriguez told The Post, adding she’s worried swabs will expire.
Wadsworth processes tests for free, which is ideal for the cash-strapped county that operates the Livingston County Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation and employs roughly 200 healthcare workers.
Rodriguez said she has lined up private lab contracts, but that will cost an estimated $100 per test.
Dutchess County was also scheduled to ship 950 tests to Albany, but was similarly told to find alternative plans.
“Dutchess was advised our efforts to test residents at nursing homes couldn’t continue at Wadsworth. They tell us our work to support the homes, provide comfort to families and protect lives can’t be accommodated and we need to find a private lab. This is nothing short of inexcusable,” County Executive Marc Molinaro told The Post.
Albany County was told the lab is so backlogged it’s “prioritizing” nursing home residents’ tests, but has no room for tests from staffers.
The test issue was also flagged by officials from Westchester County in emails obtained by The Post, widely shared among their colleagues in other jurisdictions.
Dennis Delborgo, the county’s emergency management director, expressed confusion over the state-ordered “nursing home initiative.”
He wrote on May 9 that the state failed to provide a “plan as to what to do next, what lab to use and how to process and handle the samples, whether or not the facilities were required to participate.”
Delborgo said he was astonished when an official at the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services told him he “should find [his] own lab” since the state DOH “couldn’t handle the volume” because Westchester is “one of the wealthiest counties in NYS,” the emails show.
The agency denied the comments were made.
“While Wadsworth is primarily a research lab, it has been operating 24/7 to be able to test more than 6,000 nursing home residents, staff and everyday New Yorkers this week alone — in addition to New York State giving open access to the 31-state run testing sites to nursing home staff,” DOH spokesman Gary Holmes told The Post.
He said the state is authorizing several “commercial labs which have capacity to run tens of thousands of tests a day to support this important directive” and will help counties and nursing homes conduct testing if needed.