Nursing Home Opens Its Doors To Care For Coronavirus Patients

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- Country Villa South Convalescent Center, a nursing home in Palms that was recently hit with a coronavirus outbreak, is now accepting patients who've tested positive for the virus to help prevent others from getting infected.

"We felt in discussions with the state and with the county that if we cohort or put patients together who already had the disease then we could prevent spread potentially from other facilities," said Dr. David Silver of Rockport Healthcare Services.

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Grateful families have rallied around the care center in support of what they're doing.

"There is a stigma to having this," said Dr. Silver "Here's a place that would welcome you and provide you all the support and care you need and that we're here to help. We are hopefully helping those patients not only on the physical side but also on the emotional side as well."

Patients from other facilities and hospitals have been taken into the Los Angeles nursing home, which the state previously reported had 58 patients and 15 staff test positive for coronavirus.

The care center is an 87-bed facility and it's almost at capacity while demand for space is surging.

Officials said they've opened two other facilities to be able to replicate the same thing they've achieved at CV South and are working to ensure that the staff helping with these efforts have the protective gear they need.