Source: NBC News
The state of New Jersey has suspended new admissions at a nursing home, 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.
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. 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 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.
During the early days of the pandemic, 83 residents died of Covid and bodies were found stacked at the facility. According to state officials, 16 residents at the facility have died from Covid since September.
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.”
A woman who answered the phone at Woodland said, “As far as I know there is no comment.”