ONTARIO — The Brookdale Ontario senior living facility has had one CCOVID-19 death, the Oregon Health Authority announced Wednesday, July 15. The facility also has six more cases than last week, for a total of 32 with positive tests.

A state record from July 1 said the facility had 41 residents.

The facility was restricting visitors, requiring masks and hiring extra staff by April 30, according to a state inspection report obtained through a public records request from the Oregoin Department of Human Services. The assisted living center used a hospital-grade disinfectant on counters, drawers, doorknobs and handrails, and had enough gloves, face masks and other equipment. The inspector found no reasons for follow-up in any of their 35 categories of precautions.

Heather Luther, Ontario Brookdale executive director, directed the Malheur Enterprise to the facility’s corporate parent, Brookdale Senior Living Inc. A company spokesperson, Heather Hunter, declined to answer two sets of specific questions about circumstances at its Ontario operation.

Brookdale Senior Living is a publicly traded national chain based in Tennessee, which operated and owned 763 senior living facilities across 45 states in 2019. One of their other Oregon locations, in Clackamas County, has nine COVID-19 cases with no deaths, the Health Authority reported.

After the first case, the Ontario facility began isolating residents with positive COVID-19 results, according to a July 1 state review. Each resident had a private apartment and bedroom, unless they were shared with a couple.

According to the review, employees with symptoms of the virus were turned away, and staff checked residents for symptoms twice a day. Residents routinely left the facility, but the reason for their trips was redacted in the report. Residents did leave the facility for reasons such as medical appointments, Hunter said. Staff placed furniture in the common room 6 feet apart, canceled all activities and delivered meals from the kitchen to each resident’s room.

Some of the residents would be transferred to a Portland-area COVID-19 treatment facility, the report said.

The July 1 report found several concerns: the break room was not large for social distancing, staff needed a face shield disinfection area, the designated personal protective equipment area needed to have instructions posted, and more.

On July 6, a new report found the break room issue was resolved, the equipment area had instructions and other fixes were in place. They were in the process of starting to monitor their hand hygiene and cleaning practices.

The facility still wasn’t monitoring symptomatic residents three times a day, the July 6 report said, not had it designated a place to disinfect, dry and store face shields.

By July 6, all COVID-19-positive residents were sent to one unit of the facility, with all but one entrance closed and sealed with a plastic barrier, tape and zipper. Nurses assigned to work with those patients didn’t go to the other side of the facility. The facility followed CDC infection control practices, the report said. Some residents who contracted COVID-19 were receiving treatment from facilities in Tigard and Boise, the report said.