Local doctor opens nursing homes only for patients infected with COVID-19

LOS ANGELES - In an effort to reduce the growing number of deaths in nursing homes as a result of COVID-19, one local doctor has opened up several assisted living facilities only for treating patients who have tested positive for the virus.

“We’re the first in the county to do it,” said Dr. David Silver. “We can potentially prevent what’s going on in Seattle, New York, New Jersey, places like that, and maybe save hundreds if not thousands of lives.”

Dr. Silver is part of Rockport Healthcare Services, the largest nursing home provider in the state of California.

He’s opened three nursing homes around Los Angeles for COVID-19 positive patients only.

“We joke, we call it sort of like the nuclear bomb that goes into the facility, you have a single patient who has COVID or a single staff member and all of a sudden they infect everyone else in the facility,” Silver said.

Instead, Dr. Silver is now grouping the infected patients together in his facilities to prevent infections at other nursing homes with healthy residents.

Dr. Silver is providing his infected patients with specialized resources and highly trained staff.

“A lot of the staff actually we’re using are people who have been previously exposed so they have some immunity to the virus,” he said. “And it’s after they’ve had their exposure so they’re not infectious to anybody else.”

Dr. Silver says there are currently over 100 infected patients being treated at his facilities, and he expects that number to double in the coming weeks.

He’s prepared to open 6-10 more facilities across the state if there’s demand for it.

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