Despite a court order, the Mississippi State Department of Health failed to release the names of Forrest County long-term care facilities where 28 patients have now died.
In a May 26 ruling, Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Tiffany Grove ordered MSDH to provide The PineBelt News with “access to or copies of public records containing information... specifying the facility, the owner of the facility and the number of residents affected and tested for the illness.”
Instead, Cassandra Walter, MSDH counsel and special assistant attorney general, sent an email to Managing Editor Joshua Wilson and Publisher David Gustafson that included a chart that named six specific nursing homes, their owners, and the number of residents tested at each of those facilities.
Late Wednesday, after the print edition of The PineBelt NEWS was sent to the press, Walter provided a second report with some additional information pertaining to the newspaper's original Open Records request. In her email, Walter acknowledged that the health department “does not maintain the number of residents ‘affected’ in any particular licensed facility.”
A separate press release sent to media outlets Tuesday afternoon from the department’s office of communications indicated that beginning June 3, the names of current long-term care facilities that have COVID-19 outbreaks would be posted on the MSDH website and updated daily.
According to the release, the list – which had not been posted by press time Wednesday – will include the name and county of the facility only, not a breakdown of the number of cases associated with each facility.
The press release goes on to state that information requests for facility-specific data will have to be addressed at a later time.
“The MSDH is not currently able to pull frontline epidemiological staff to perform such queries as they are focusing on contact tracing and case investigations.”
Reporters for The PineBelt NEWS and other media outlets have been seeking those numbers since April 5, the day the first virus case was announced within a Forrest County facility.
The PineBelt NEWS and its parent company, Hattiesburg Publishing, filed a lawsuit against the Health Department in Hinds County Chancery Court on May 12 after the department failed to respond to the records request within the seven-day time frame required by law.
On April 29, newspaper staff filed a complaint with the Mississippi Ethics Commission but were told it would be months before the commission could take up the case. Because of the commission backlog, the newspaper sought relief through the court system, according to Publisher David Gustafson.
In her May 26 ruling, Grove found that the department failed to comply with state law in producing the requested records within seven days and also failed to provide a written explanation of why the documents could not be produced in that time frame.
Additionally, the judge ruled that the department failed to provide a written statement of a specific exemption to state law relied upon for denial of the requested records.
“Simply put, Dr. (Thomas) Dobbs and the Mississippi State Department of Health did not keep up their end of the bargain,” said Gustafson. “Chancellor Grove was very specific in her court order and now Dr. Dobbs and his team continue to skirt around the issue.”
On May 27, Gustafson received an email from Ingrid Williams, the department’s chief legal counsel, indicating the newspaper would receive a response to its original request no later than Friday, May 29.
On Monday, June 1 MSDH Director of Communication Liz Sharlot told Gustafson that the request had been sent to Tommy Goodwin at the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office for “disposition.”
When asked, Sharlot declined to disclose why the May 29 self-imposed deadline was missed and instead indicated that Walter was expected to respond by the end of the day, June 2, the deadline originally imposed by Grove.
According to the health department, there are six long term care facilities in Forrest County where residents have been tested, including Bedford Alzheimer’s Care Center, Bedford Care Center at Monroe Hall, Bedford Care Center of Hattiesburg, Bedford Care Center of Petal, Hattiesburg Health & Rehab Center and the Forrest General Hospital Skilled Nursing Facility.
In all, 464 residents have been tested at those facilities.
Dr. Thomas Dobbs, state health officer, has previously said releasing names of facilities where residents or staff members test positive for the virus could stigmatize the facilities, making it difficult for them to hire new employees.
Some 32 other states, including Louisiana, have been releasing the names of nursing homes with cases of the highly contagious virus.
This is a developing story.
