In December 2019, Sharon Farrell flew from Florida to visit her brother Stephen at a New Jersey nursing dwelling, exactly where, she stated, she observed “disgusting” disorders. “I informed the nurse, ‘I am calling the state,'” she explained. “I’m having to pay $9,000 a thirty day period, and I would not permit my doggy reside like this.”
It has been 19 months since the discovery of 17 bodies in a little morgue at the Andover Subacute II nursing home in Sussex County, New Jersey, in April 2020. The federal federal government fined the proprietors $221,115 for not being in “significant compliance,” and the lawyer general’s office environment started an investigation.
But the owners are continue to in enterprise. They improved the names of Andover and its sister facility and mounted new signs out entrance. As of Friday, there were 25 residents of Andover with COVID-19, according to point out details.
And the house owners are nevertheless currently being paid out by Medicare and Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded applications that shell out most charges for U.S. nursing home operators — even while a single of the homeowners, Louis Schwartz, assisted run a chain termed Skyline Health care, which collapsed in 2019 amid accusations of neglect and monetary mismanagement, which the chain denied.
In a statement, the homeowners of Andover, now recognised as Woodland Behavioral, said that “the security and health of our people has generally been the prime precedence for Woodland Behavioral,” adding: “The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented worries, and our heroic staff members faced people challenges as ideal as they could. We keep on to thank them for every little thing they did (and proceed to do) to safeguard our residents.”
