#Mentally ill guest runs away from city quarantine hotel in Queens

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LaGuardia Plaza Hotel in Queens, New York.

J.C. Rice

A “guest” in a city hotel program for those with COVID-19 went AWOL this week, leaving one nurse to question how he could take off without being stopped, The Post has learned.

The man had been staying at the LaGuardia Plaza Hotel in Queens, which the city’s Health Hospitals Corp. has rented as a place where those who test positive for the coronavirus can isolate.

The man was both positive for COVID-19 and HIV and had mental health issues, according to an insider.

But he “left the hotel without finishing the recommended quarantine/isolation and did not communicate with hotel staff upon departure,” according to official minutes from a Sept. 9 staff meeting seen by The Post.

During the meeting, a head nurse in the program said “she is unclear how a guest can leave the 3rd floor and no one notices.” Wellness checks were done, but a nurse thought the man’s room was empty because “there was no signage on the door” and it had been cleaned.

The head nurse also said there was a two-hour gap in video footage from the hotel so no one knew exactly when he left.

The nurse said someone needed to contact the man, but the insider said he had not been located as of Friday morning.

There are some 40 city-funded staffers who work at the hotel in two 12-hour shifts including a total of six nurses, 12 licensed practical nurses, 12 hall monitors and four security guards, according to the insider.

A total of 86 people were staying at the 358-room hotel as of Thursday, the insider said, adding that the highest guest count since the pandemic started in March was 106 two weeks ago.

Health Hospitals told The Post “Guests who enter our program can voluntarily leave at any time.”

But the agency also maintained that those with confirmed coronavirus get round-the-clock monitoring by a nurse.

“We are committed to ensuring New Yorkers can safely separate from loved ones through our accommodations while recovering from the virus, and receiving high-quality care through our Hotel Program,” an agency spokeswoman said.

The city secured hotel rooms to give people who live in crowded homes a place to recover from the virus or to isolate from family members if they believed they had been exposed to the virus or tested positive for it. But the hotels have been underused with more workers than patients at times.

Of four hotels rented by the city for the program, only the LaGuardia Plaza is still in use, the insider said.

Three men died at a quarantine hotel near Times Square in April prompting a city investigation.

Health Hospitals said it had reserved 1,174 rooms at the height of the pandemic and that 1,555 people used the program since March. The agency said the costs were reimbursable through the federal CARES Act fund.