Healthcare

This story is being updated as new information becomes available. It began with one employee falling ill from the coronavirus. By Friday morning, just 11 days later, more than 55 elderly and infirmed residents at the Aston Park Health Care Center in southwest Asheville and at least 30 of its staff had tested positive. 

Four residents had died and one was hospitalized. “We have some that are very, very sick,” said Executive Director Marsha Kaufman. “It’s hitting those patients that have been declining and are really weak and compromised, the worst.”

Coronavirus is sweeping through North Carolina nursing homes, claiming an astonishing toll of more than 400 dead.

The biggest health crisis in a lifetime hit Asheville shortly after the one-year anniversary of the biggest upheaval in local healthcare: the $1.5 billion sale of the nonprofit Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest for-profit hospital management chain. The transition from local nonprofit to profit-hungry behemoth has not gone smoothly, and not just because of the coronavirus. Now, as Mission Health begins to reopen for elective surgeries and procedures put on hold during the first wave of the ongoing pandemic, the unresolved question that roiled the community just three months ago remains: Was HCA’s purchase of Mission Health healthy for Asheville? Three months now seems a very long time ago, but just before the pandemic arrived — before the lawns on Mission Health were decorated with “Heroes Work Here” signs and before citizens cheered the front-line health professionals risking everything on their behalf — hundreds of area residents and local officials said they did not think so. HCA reported to attorney general that Mission Health provided more than $260 million in charity care in first year … and raised prices 10 percent.