Image of male nurse pushing senior woman in a wheelchair in nursing facility

Connecticut ­– The state has opened a fourth recovery center for COVID-19 patients in an effort to ease the load on nursing providers throughout the state. 

Torrington Health & Rehabilitation Center, a closed nursing home that reopened this year, was scheduled to begin receiving sick residents the first week of December. Recovery centers allow nursing homes to transfer their COVID-19 residents there for treatment while they manage the rest of their residents, the CT Mirror reported. They also accept COVID-positive discharges from hospitals, and residents from assisted living facilities who contract the coronavirus.

Connecticut providers have previously stressed the need for creating COVID-only recovery centers since early in the pandemic. The goal is to help create additional bed space and prevent the disease from spreading throughout facilities.

“The trick is to keep it from getting into the building,” Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, told the Mirror. “When you find people in the building that have it, try to get those people out of the facility, or get the well people out. So we’re looking at the concept of COVID-19-specific nursing facilities, at least for the time being during the pandemic,” he added.