Report paints scathing picture of nursing home where 17 bodies piled up

One patient at a troubled nursing home in northern New Jersey was found dead in bed, 12 hours after falling on a wet floor and suffering a head injury. Rigor mortis had set in. The patient had suffered from a high fever for days, but a doctor was never told.

Sick residents who were awaiting the results of coronavirus tests shared rooms with healthy residents.

And thermometers used to take employees’ temperatures at the start of each shift did not work.

Those were among the findings of a federal inspection last month of the nursing home, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Centre II, now the site of one of the largest outbreaks of the virus in New Jersey.

The report, released Thursday by the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offers the first detailed glimpse into how the pandemic has ravaged nursing homes across the country.

The privately owned nursing home was found to have placed its residents in “immediate jeopardy” and has been fined $220,000. The median fine by the federal agency over the past three years was $13,000.

The report was released on the same day that members of the National Guard arrived in Andover, New Jersey, to assist at the nursing home, a 543-bed facility that has been chronically short of staff and masks and has over the past two years received poor grades from federal and state inspectors.

At least 53 of its residents have died since March after testing positive for the virus.

An employee at the Andover home said they were told to expect 22 National Guard members whose duties would include cleaning and disinfecting. Over the past week, residents have complained that clothing and bedsheets had not been washed.

“It’s not sanitary,” said Jewell Jones, whose brother, Ronald Young, 69, is a resident. “The lights were out, flies in the room. We’re just worried about him all the time.”

She said staff members had been more responsive since last month, when federal and state inspectors began a review after police found 17 bodies piled in a small morgue and employees reported that conditions were dire.

The police had gone to the home after getting an anonymous tip that a corpse was stored in a shed.

The facility has been temporarily barred since last month from accepting new patients, and penalties will continue accruing daily until it addresses problems cited in the report related to infection control. The nursing home generated $42 million in 2018, mostly from Medicare and Medicaid, according to federal records.

It was also required to complete a plan to hire several new employees for crucial roles, including a chief nurse.

The findings were based on a review of the facility and its records between April 6-21. The operator of the facility, Chaim Scheinbaum, said in a statement released Thursday that he looked forward to working with state and federal officials to “continue to battle this deadly virus.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Scheinbaum said, “noted areas of improvement for Andover Subacute II’’ and “determined that the facility’s remediation plan was acceptable as fatalities continue to drop.”

The township of Andover had conducted its own inspection in mid-April and found that the facility did not have a sufficient number of body bags to adequately handle patients who had died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“The state report has opened up questions about the viability of this facility,” said Andover’s mayor, Michael Lensak. “It makes me concerned for the safety of the residents.”

Family members and Sussex County officials had repeatedly asked Gov. Philip D. Murphy to send the National Guard in to help, as he has done at two state-run veterans’ homes.

Murphy said Thursday that 120 National Guard members would be deployed at private nursing homes, including Andover.

Four members of the military, dressed in camouflage, were seen walking near the nursing home, located in a rural area of New Jersey, 55 miles northwest of New York City, early Thursday.

The state health commissioner, Judith M Persichilli, said that members of the National Guard would be on site seven days a week.

“I am absolutely disgusted and heartbroken for the residents, staff, and families about the conditions this CMS inspection has uncovered,” Rep Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat who represents the area, said in a statement. “The loss of life and the circumstances that so many of the residents faced are a complete tragedy.”

An ailing resident is removed from an Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Centre building in Andover, NJ, on Sunday, Apr 19, 2020. The New York Times

There have been 4,556 virus-related deaths linked to nursing homes in New Jersey.

The governor has hired a team to evaluate what went wrong at long-term care centers, and the state attorney general has also started investigating nursing homes with high fatality rates, an inquiry that could lead to criminal charges.

Scheinbaum said he welcomed the help from the National Guard.

“Andover has made steady progress over the past several weeks. The number of virus-related deaths at the facility has dropped precipitously and is now down by approximately 90% as compared to the height of the pandemic,” Scheinbaum said.

“Dozens of staff who were in quarantine have been able to return to work, and the workforce is at full strength with a team of new consultants and other professionals on board to help us through this crisis.”

© 2020 New York Times News Service