Things looking up for Coös County Nursing Hospital
January 06, 2021WEST STEWARTSTOWN The Coös County Nursing Hospital, located in West Stewartstown, has seen extremely dire days as the COVID-19 virus ripped through residents and staff, claiming several lives. However, a bright spot came last week on Dec. 29, when Nursing Home Administrator Laura Mills reported that the testing for that week showed no positive cases.
Mills said, It has been a great week so far and has really given me hope for 2021. All test results from Monday were negative. Add that to the fact that we had no positive staff in the building since December 14th and the result is a closed outbreak.
No Plans in Place
Sununuâs Response To COVID-19 Outbreaks Leaves Coös County Nursing Hospital Behind.
At a press conference last week, Governor Chris Sununu said that âany long-term care facilities that need help and assistanceâ¦weâre going to be there for them.â Unfortunately, what our Governor says does not match what he does. When we ask for help in the North Country, our voices are not heard.
When the COVID-19 outbreak hit the Coös County Nursing Hospital in West Stewartstown, Berlin Mayor Paul Grenier (Also Vice-Chair of County Commission) called on Governor Sununu for assistance with critical staffing. The state rejected the request and offered little help to mitigate the outbreak. Instead of help, Sununuâs Department of Health and Human Services sent a survey team to the hospital to do an inspection. This forced the already short-staffed hospital to divert dedicated staff members from taking care of patients to helping the inspectors.