The COVID-19 vaccination rates for rural Warren and Potter counties, located on either side of McKean, were 49.9% and 36.4% respectively on Dec. 7, according to the CDC.
Neither Mary E. LaRowe, interim president and CEO of Upper Allegheny, nor Dr. Owens returned calls for comment.
State Rep. Martin Causer, a Republican from Annin Township, McKean County, who opposed the cutbacks at Bradford Regional, said the latest surge in COVID-19 cases has exposed cracks in the region’s health care system.
“Our health care system is being overwhelmed right now,” he said. “There was an assumption that Olean General could handle the intensive care cases, but the pandemic is showing us that they can’t handle them.”
Mr. Causer, who chairs the Pennsylvania House Majority Policy Committee, will host a hearing on the region’s health care problems in January in Bradford.
The only other hospital in McKean County is UPMC Kane, a 31-bed facility in Kane Borough. For the sickest patients, UPMC Kane has five intensive care unit beds — the only ones left in a county of 40,625 people.
Five people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in McKean in early December, according to the state Department of Health. None were in intensive care, but that hasn’t stopped some long-term care facilities from preparing.
Up for the next battle
The staff at Lutheran Home at Kane, a nonprofit senior living facility that took the brunt of a deadly COVID-19 surge a year ago, was resolved in early December as the number of cases in the county inched up. Most of the staff and residents are now vaccinated; the nursing home’s COVID-19 isolation unit is empty; employees have cross trained to fill empty slots.
But memories of last winter remain fresh.
All but two of 78 residents tested positive in December 2020 — 10 of them died — and eventually one-third of employees were out because of the virus, said CEO Char Floravit, a 51-year-old no-nonsense administrator with can-do confidence. Visitors were banned; from outside the building, a family member pounded a loved one’s window, begging them not to go.
Census, patient admissions and discharges and other issues are discussed at the daily morning meet at Lutheran Home at Kane.
Ms. Floravit turned for help from the Pennsylvania National Guard, which sent a registered nurse and five or six housekeepers who helped with sanitation.
Other nursing homes around the state — buckled by the coronavirus — did the same.
In the months since, the nursing home — where a Christmas tree was decorated in the lobby the first week of December — has worked to fight against a repeat of last year.
Eleven Lutheran Home managers and two hourly employees underwent cross training as nurse aides last April to prepare for staff shortages that were all but certain. Lutheran Home offers fully paid medical, vision and dental benefits to attract and keep employees, which has helped limit the expense of hiring temporary staffers.
And 87% of the staff had been vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Dec. 5 — exceeding the statewide average for nursing homes.
On the horizon are the unknowns that may come with COVID-19’s omicron variant, which may be the most contagious strain yet but hasn’t yet reached rural Pennsylvania. At least no cases have been officially identified.
The new variant is not a big worry at the nursing home.
“Let’s be honest,” said Ms. Floravit, who lives south of Kane in St. Marys, Elk County, population 12,429.
“None of these facilities are set up for a pandemic. COVID is COVID, no matter what strain it is. We’ll deal with it.”
A miracle and a change of heart
After Ms. Reigel’s decision to withhold further care for her husband that October morning, he was given morphine and anti-anxiety medicine through a vein. Ms. Reigel and her family spent the afternoon reminiscing with him at the Erie hospital, where he’d been flown by helicopter from UPMC Kane Hospital.
His oxygen levels had fallen dangerously low, prompting the emergency flight.
The family left Hamot that evening after a supper of chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches in the hospital cafeteria. Ms. Reigel drove the 97 miles home to Kane Borough in McKean County to wait for the telephone call from the hospital.
She tossed and turned all night.
In the morning, she was surprised by her husband’s voice on the phone.
“What are you doing,” she asked, stunned.
“I’m sitting here talking with the doctor, having coffee,” he said. “What are you doing?”
Dr. Shakoor called Mr. Reigel’s recovery a miracle, his wife said. No one has been more surprised by his turnaround than Mr. Reigel, a former Marine who served in Vietnam.
A photograph of Dennis Reigel and a fellow service member from when he served as a Marine in Vietnam, which his wife Sue Reigel brought to Lutheran Home at Kane, where Mr. Reigel was recovering from COVID-19.
“A year ago, we’re in rural Pennsylvania: COVID was everywhere but here,” he said, now getting rehab care in the skilled nursing unit at Lutheran Home at Kane, walking distance from his home. He was continuing to receive oxygen as he tried to regain his strength.
“He just doesn’t want to quit,” his wife said.
Mr. Reigel, too stubborn to die, was also too stubborn to get a COVID-19 shot for a long time.
Marine “hardheadedness” kept him from getting vaccinated, he said. He wasn’t sure the scientists had all the details nailed down either, adding, “They didn’t know enough about it, really. They were just flying by the seat of their pants. They still don’t know what’s going on.”
Social media posts about COVID-19 vaccines causing sterility in women or restarting menopause or implanting microchips were enough to make his wife hesitant about the shots.
What changed after Mr. Reigel’s two-week trial in the ICU is the couple’s resistance to getting the vaccine: both plan to get vaccinated with their next doctor’s appointment.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through this,” Mr. Reigel said, panting. “It’s going to be a difficult Christmas, but I’m alive.”
A note on a calendar in his room marks the week Dennis Reigel was scheduled to be discharged from Lutheran Home at Kane, where he was being treated for COVID-19 related lung problems.
Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699
