Together again: Elderly New Yorkers rejoice as senior centers reopen

By Maria Caspani

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After more than a year of pandemic-forced separation, 85-year old Justo Fleitas was back at the pool table at his neighborhood’s senior center, finally reunited with a small group of friends and his cue stick.

“It’s beautiful, no words to say how I feel,” said Fleitas, an avid pool player and a regular at the Star Senior Center in Manhattan.

On Monday this week, senior centers in New York City welcomed back the city’s elderly for indoor activities after being closed for more than a year.

Fleitas, who left Cuba for the United States in his 20’s, worked as a barber until he retired more than 20 years ago. After being confined at home with his wife during the coronavirus pandemic that ravaged New York, he said he has been eagerly waiting for the center to reopen.

He was far from alone in that pent up anticipation.

“Before we opened, seniors were already calling, asking for us to reopen,” said Maggie Hernandez, a program coordinator at Star Senior Center. “They were preparing themselves for weeks for this to happen.”

Centers such as the one in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan are a lifeline for many senior citizens who rely on them for food, companionship and recreation.

When the pandemic shut them down last spring, along with most other activities, some older New Yorkers, at particularly high risk for severe COVID-19, were forced to hunker down at home, often alone.

Staff at Star Senior Center made some 35,000 wellness calls to its seniors who reported suffering from isolation, anxiety and depression, Hernandez said.

‘MISSED HERE SO MUCH’

On the first day of reopening, the center was bustling at lunch hour. Gaggles of seniors gathered around the large tables spread out around the room, filling the place with animated conversations for the first time in more than a year.

Helen Anderson started frequenting the Star Senior Center a few years ago, attracted by its diversity. When the pandemic hit, Anderson said she “tried to survive” by speaking on the phone with the center’s staff.

“Oh my goodness, I missed here so much,” said Anderson, 72, as she tucked a face covering under her glasses to keep it from sliding down.

Anderson, who lives alone, said she started seeing her daughter in person during the Christmas holidays late last year, although she did not allow her inside the apartment for fear of getting sick.

The retired nurse said she religiously watched New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daily news conferences hoping for an announcement about the reopening of senior centers.

On June 1, de Blasio said senior centers could resume outdoor activities and indoor gatherings would resume on June 14.

“Seniors bore the brunt of the COVID crisis, they were the most vulnerable,” the mayor said at the time of the announcement.

New Yorkers 75 and older were hospitalized for COVID-19 at rates four times higher than the rest of the population and died at seven times the rate of the rest of the residents, city health data shows https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.page#summary.

About 128 of the 250 senior centers in the Department for the Aging’s (DFTA) network were reopening as of late Tuesday, according to a spokesperson for the department.

Some centers were still wrestling with the logistics of how to safely resume operations as they are open to both vaccinated and unvaccinated seniors.

“Senior centers are notoriously small places,” said Abbie LeWarn, the assistant director of the Queens Center for Gay Seniors.

Prior to the pandemic, up to 70 seniors would frequent that center daily, said LeWarn. But having a tight space with few windows was one of the hurdles to a safe reopening, despite seniors’ excitement.

On Tuesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted most remaining COVID-19 restrictions. But safety measures like face coverings and social distancing will remain in place at senior centers, at least for now, DFTA said, citing unchanged guidance from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Despite the rain, more than 40 members showed up to Star on Monday. About 150 seniors would frequent the center on a typical day before the pandemic, Hernandez said.

A small but determined group of elderly women stretched with the aid of chairs and moved to the beat of blaring Latin music, taking their cue from an instructor who shouted words of encouragement into a microphone.

“We’re all so thrilled to be back,” Hernandez said.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Criminal probe opens into eight deaths at Florida nursing home after Irma

The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills is seen in Hollywood, north of Miami, Florida, U.S., September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Innerarity

By Andrew Innerarity

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Reuters) – Eight elderly patients died after being left inside a stifling South Florida nursing home that lost power during Hurricane Irma, officials said on Wednesday, prompting a criminal probe and adding to the mounting loss of life from the storm.

The overall death toll from Irma climbed to 81 on Wednesday, with several hard-hit Caribbean islands accounting for more than half the fatalities, and officials continued to assess damage inflicted by the second major hurricane to strike the U.S. mainland this year.

Irma killed at least 31 people in Florida, plus seven more in Georgia and South Carolina combined, authorities said.

One of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, Irma bore down on the Caribbean with devastating force as it raked the northern shore of Cuba last week before barreling into the Florida Keys island chain on Sunday, packing sustained winds of up to 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour).

It then plowed north up the Gulf Coast of the state before dissipating.

In addition to severe flooding across Florida and extensive property damage in the Keys, residents faced widespread power outages that initially plunged more than half the state into darkness.

Some 4.3 million homes and businesses were still without power on Wednesday in Florida and neighboring states, down from 7.4 million customers on Monday.

Three elderly residents were found dead on Wednesday inside a nursing home in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami. The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hill had been operating with little or no air conditioning, officials said.

Four more patients died at or en route to a nearby hospital and a fifth was later identified as having died the night before.

Governor Rick Scott called the tragedy “unfathomable,” and police said they had opened a criminal investigation, sealing off the building after the remaining patients were transferred to hospitals.

City officials described the interior as “excessively hot,” despite portable air coolers and fans that, according to state records, had been placed throughout the facility.

The eight who died ranged in age from 71 to 99, according to the Broward County medical examiner’s office. The cause of their deaths has yet to be determined.

But most of the survivors were treated for “respiratory distress, dehydration and heat-related issues,” Memorial Regional Hospital’s emergency medical director, Dr. Randy Katz, told reporters.

Representatives of the for-profit nursing home, which had received a “below average” grade from Medicare’s rating system for such facilities, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The physician listed in state records as its manager, Jack Michel, previously ran afoul of state and federal regulators over assisted-living facilities that he partially owned.

In 2006, he and three co-defendants paid $15.4 million to settle Medicare and Medicaid fraud claims against them, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Flood waters engulf a car after Hurricane Irma in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Makela

Flood waters engulf a car after Hurricane Irma in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Makela

TRUMP TO VISIT KEYS

Florida Power & Light provided electricity to parts of the nursing home but the facility was not on a county top-tier list for emergency power restoration, the utility said.

Total insured losses from the storm are expected to run about $25 billion, including $18 billion in the United States and $7 billion in the Caribbean, catastrophe modeler Karen Clark & Company estimated on Wednesday.

The Florida Keys were particularly hard hit, with federal officials saying 90 percent of its homes were destroyed or heavily damaged. The remote island chain stretches nearly 100 miles (160 km) into the Gulf of Mexico from Florida’s southern tip, connected by a single highway and series of bridges.

On Key West, at the end of the archipelago, hundreds of residents who had refused evacuation orders lined up on Wednesday outside the island’s Salvation Army outpost for water and military-style rations after enduring days of intense heat with little water, power or contact with the outside world.

The stench of dead fish and decaying seaweed permeated the air.

Elizabeth Martinez, 61, said the ordeal, including losing part of the roof of her home, had convinced her it was time to leave the island. “I’m saving my money up and moving out of here,” she said.

But David Sheidy, a 58-year-old painter, predicted Key West would bounce back quickly.

“That’s what we do,” he said. “This is a small community where everybody knows each other and takes care of each other.”

President Donald Trump was due to visit Florida on Thursday.

Irma wreaked utter devastation on several of the northern Leeward Islands of the Caribbean, where at least 43 people have died. Irma hit Florida about two weeks after Hurricane Harvey plowed into Houston, killing about 60 and causing some $180 billion in damage, mostly from flooding.

(Additional reporting by Zachary Fagenson in Key West,; Daniel Trotta in Orlando, Florida; Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Letitia Stein in Detroit, Keith Coffman in Denver,; Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina,; Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Gina Cherelus, Peter Szekeley, Scott DiSavino and Joseph Ax in New York; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by Diane Craft and Lisa Shumaker)