A sprawling, state-run residential center for adults with developmental disabilities in Park Forest has become a hot spot for COVID-19 cases in the south suburbs.
The Elisabeth Ludeman Developmental Center, the second largest developmental center in the state, has recorded 52 COVID-19 cases among residents and staff, Illinois Department of Human Services spokeswoman Meghan Powers said Thursday. Two residents who contracted the virus have died of COVID-19 complications, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Powers said the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped in recent days after the agency received an influx of test kits and began testing more of its symptomatic residents. Once all of its symptomatic residents have been tested, the agency will begin testing residents who had contact with COVID-19-positive residents, she said.
“It’s a systematic way of doing this, but it’s going to show a jump in our number of positive cases because we are testing so much more broadly,” Powers said.
At least four of the center’s 40 group homes are in isolation due to exposure or potential exposure to the novel coronavirus and all 353 residents are being encouraged to remain in their bedrooms, according to Parents & Friends of the Ludeman Center, a website for a nonprofit organization associated with the facility.
The outbreak at the center, which covers a 60-acre plot along the village’s northwest border with Matteson, accounts for a significant portion of Park Forest’s 113 COVID-19 cases, according to Cook County Health Department data.
Of the 52 confirmed cases at the Ludeman Center, 38 involve residents and 14 involve staff, Powers said.
Both Ludeman Center residents known to have died of COVID-19-related complications did so this week. A 67-year-old man died Monday at Franciscan Health in Olympia Fields and a 50-year-old man died Tuesday at South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Their deaths bring the total number of COVID-19-related deaths of south suburban long-term care or group facility residents to at least 29, according to a Southtown analysis of medical examiner’s office data.
The only other COVID-19-related death reported at a south suburban group home for adults with developmental disabilities involved a 61-year-old man living at the Bjorklund House in Oak Forest, who died March 27.
The Ludeman Center’s director on Thursday declined comment on the situation and referred all questions to the Illinois Department of Human Services, which oversees the facility.
Powers said IDHS officials recognized early on that residents at its developmental centers, many of whom have underlying health issues, would be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 infection and began making preparations well before any had tested positive for the virus.
IDHS Secretary Grace Hou wrote in a letter to stakeholders earlier this month that because the agency believed as many as 30% of residents at its seven developmental centers who tested positive for COVID-19 would become very ill, it was taking every precaution to ensure it could anticipate and care for those residents.
“They were very proactive,” Illinois Department of Public Health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said of IDHS at the governor’s press briefing Thursday. “They were immediately following recommendations to start thinking about their facilities, trying to identify their space issues, trying to figure out how people would be able to be spread out if they needed to isolate and segregate.”
IDHS began taking a number of steps to limit contagion on March 12, nearly two weeks before the first confirmed COVID-19 case in a state-run facility, according to Hou’s letter.
The agency has since been screening staff for symptoms every shift and checking residents’ vital signs twice a day; has suspended non-essential visits to facilities and canceled all group activities and off-campus outings; and has enhanced cleaning practices and continually trained staff on sanitation and handwashing, she wrote.
For all their preparation, however, the agency has struggled to procure enough personal protective equipment for employees.
Hou wrote in her April letter to stakeholders that staff at the state’s 24/7 facilities did not have enough personal protective equipment to do their job and that she was fighting daily to obtain more resources to meet the “urgent demand” at IDHS-funded, community-based facilities.
She said the agency had been tracking its use of PPE supplies “down to the individual piece” at all of its facilities and promised she would not stop working until she’d obtained the supplies and equipment needed to protect workers.
Park Forest Mayor Jonathan Vanderbilt said Wednesday that he and his staff were working with the Ludeman Center to secure more personal protective equipment for its employees, who are “desperately in need of PPE.”
“They’ve reached out to the village and we’re trying to help them,” he said.
Vanderbilt said he’d been told the center’s biggest needs were disposable stethoscopes, disposable blood pressure cuffs and gowns.
He said anyone who wished to donate items could drop them off at Building 2, the Ludeman Center’s storeroom, at 114 N. Orchard Drive in Park Forest.
zkoeske@tribpub.com
Twitter @ZakKoeske
