Cornell Scott Hill Health Center in New Haven has removed all patients from its Grant Street inpatient addiction-recovery facility after two people there tested positive for Covid-19. It has also taken steps at all its facilities to enable people to get health care without getting sick.
That update comes from Cornell Scott Hill Health CEO Michael Taylor.
Taylor told the Independent Tuesday that all 25 patients at the residential treatment center on Grant Street have been relocated. Some are homeless, and are being put up in motel rooms. Some had a place to go and are staying in isolation. All are being treated remotely.
Hill Health took that action in consultation with the city Health Department after first a Grant Street staff member, then a patient, tested positive for the coronavirus. They are both now being treated at Yale New Haven Hospital.
Then a third person, who was visiting Hill Health’s Columbus Avenue facility, displayed possible symptoms. That person has been tested and is currently at the hospital as well.
“We were having one person after another. We knew we had a situation on our hands,” Taylor said.
“We are taking every precaution to protect both staff and our patients.”
No one else associated with the Grant Street shelter has tested positive, according to Taylor.
Now Hill Health is making sure at all its facilities that anyone arriving — staff as well as patients — is screened for symptoms before going inside. The center has set up tables outside each facility to do that.
The centers continue to see patients, although “people are justifiably reluctant” to come in for preventive care appointments, Taylor said.