Warco still not getting answers from health department about its handing of COVID-19 cases
Nearly two weeks after leaders of the Pennsylvania State Coroners’ Association talked with the state Department of Health regarding concerns about how they and other personnel should handle individuals who die in their homes and may have had the coronavirus, coroners have received no guidance, said Washington County Coroner S. Timothy Warco.
In a letter he sent to the health department on Friday, Warco said he and coroners still face the same challenges, “with zero satisfaction from the Department of Health’s leadership.”
“We are frustrated,” said Warco in a telephone interview Friday. “First, this is an issue of public safety, and second, the inability and reluctance of the Department of Health to give us test kits means we cannot give answer to families when they’re saying the decedent needs to be tested and I say I can’t.”
Among Warco’s complaints is what he described as the Department of Health’s stance that COVID-19-related deaths are not required to be reported to coroners.
“This is an absurd point of view, and I vehemently disagree,” he wrote in the letter. “I have directed health-care leadership in Washington County to report these deaths.”
He also said coroners dispute the state’s view of their role in the pandemic, and are unhappy the health department has not provided coroners with test kits to perform testing.
Warco attempted to contract with private laboratories, which have declined.
Warco noted, “In life the deceased have come into contact with no fewer people than any living person who is ill. Further, we are putting our first responders’ lives in jeopardy by sending them into unsafe situations with no way to confirm or negate exposure.”
Warco wrote in the letter he reached a “tipping point” in March when Pennsylvania State Police and an ambulance crew arrived at the home of a person who exhibited COVID-19 symptoms before dying in their home.
Police contacted Warco’s office, normal procedure for home deaths, and asked the office to test the person.
“I was unable to do so because we have no means to perform that testing,” Warco said, who is concerned about the safety and health of personnel who are dispatched to homes where someone might have had the coronavirus.
Those troopers later were recommended to isolate because of potential exposure.
Warco also contends the state’s statistical count of COVID-19 deaths is inaccurate if home deaths are not included.
He contends the numbers of actual COVID-19 deaths from Washington County and other counties in the state are not accurate because home deaths, including “probable” coronavirus deaths, are not included in the state’s count. The skewed numbers make it difficult to determine what courses of action the state, and country, should take when considering lifting restrictions for work and social interaction.
“Not everyone seeks treatment at a hospital or doctor’s office,” Warco wrote. “Confirming suspected COVID-19 deaths at home adds a whole new vector for tracking how and to where this disease is transmitted.”
Warco serves as executive vice president of the Pennsylvania State Coroners’ Association.
He said the coroners’ association has identified several goals, and among them are: including coroners in the reporting process; the safety of residents and first responders, including firefighters, EMS, law enforcement, coroners and deputies, health-care workers, and funeral directors; and increased COVID-19 testing.
Warco said the state law requires deaths known or suspected to be due to contagious disease and constituting a public hazard “are to be reported to the coroner.” Not doing so, he said, results in COVID-19 deaths not being reported.
Warco believes the Department of Health is not working in the “interest of all” in the midst of a public health crisis.
“Smaller counties do not have the luxury of a health department,” Warco concluded. “During these times, residents and first responders are looking to their county coroners and public safety departments alike. Unfortunately, my office’s proverbial arms are being tied.”