State threatens to take over NJ nursing home where bodies were stacked
The state of New Jersey has suspended new admissions at a nursing home where 17 bodies were found stacked in a morgue in 2020, citing the results of recent inspections in which staff members allegedly failed to do CPR or call 911 for unresponsive patients or provide lifesaving medicine for Covid patients.
According to state officials, 16 residents at the facility have died from Covid since September.
On Thursday, the facility, once known as Andover Subacute II but now known as Woodland Behavioral Health, was given 72 hours to respond to the report and address allegations of shortcomings or the state would revoke its license. The facility has now responded, a spokesperson for the state said, and the state is reviewing its response. As of Monday, the facility’s license had not been revoked.
According to state inspectors:
Staff members failed to do CPR or call 911 for two residents who were found unresponsive, one of whom was 55 years old. Both residents died.
A doctor ordered immediate monoclonal antibodies for a resident who had Covid, but although the facility got the drugs, the lifesaving medicine was never given to the resident, who later died.
A doctor ordered monoclonal antibodies for a resident with Covid, but the nursing home failed to “verify receipt of the medication” or send the resident to the hospital to get the infusion, and the resident later died.
On Jan. 11, a resident was left “soiled in feces for ten hours” despite having a “pressure ulcer wound” to the lower back.
Another resident complained that a suprapubic catheter was caught in a motorized wheelchair and was causing physical pain, but the “resident’s pleas for help were ignored” by staff members “for over 40 minutes.”
Covid cases at the facility increased by 102 from Dec. 23 to Jan. 1.
At one point, the facility was functioning with 23 certified nursing assistants when regulations required 58.
Inspectors also gave numerous examples of verbal abuse of residents. The inspections were conducted from Jan. 3 through Feb. 2.
A woman who answered the phone at Woodland said, “As far as I know there is no comment.”
As NBC News previously reported, during the early days of the pandemic, 83 residents died of Covid and bodies were found stacked at the facility. The federal government fined the owners $221,115 for not being in “substantial compliance” with federal regulations, and the state attorney general’s office began an investigation.
The investigation is ongoing. The owners changed the facility’s name and accepted new residents. They are still being paid by Medicare and Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded programs that pay most costs for U.S. nursing home operators — even though one of the owners, Louis Schwartz, was an executive at a chain called Skyline Healthcare, which collapsed in 2019 amid accusations of neglect and financial mismanagement, which the chain denied.
In a previous statement, the owners of Woodland Behavioral said, “The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges, and our heroic staff faced those challenges as best as they could. We continue to thank them for everything they did (and continue to do) to protect our residents.”
In January, Louis Schwartz’s father, Joseph, the former owner of Skyline Healthcare, was arrested and charged with 22 federal counts of labor violations and failure to pay federal taxes. The top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger, charges that Joseph Schwartz failed to pay employment and unemployment taxes for the 15,000 employees he had at 95 facilities across 11 states.
Joseph Schwartz, who is not an owner of Woodland Behavioral, pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. His lawyer, Robert Fedor, did not respond to a request for comment.
Joseph Schwartz also faces 10 state felony charges in Arkansas connected to allegations of tax and Medicaid fraud, in addition to civil suits in Nebraska and other states.
Joseph Schwartz pleaded not guilty in Arkansas. His attorney in Arkansas, Bill James, said his client would aggressively fight the state charges. “I have not heard or seen anything to believe these allegations are true,” James said.
