Ohio "Crack House" Nursing Home- UPDATE
In a previous blog, we discussed Westside Health Care Center and the Terrace at Westside and the deplorable living conditions at the facilities. This is the nursing home that local police referred to as a "crack house". New information concerning the horror at these facilities was located in the Mansfield News Journal article: Report: Health Inspectors Failed to Report Unsafe Nursing Home Conditions.
Cincinnati is the only city in Ohio that performs its own nursing home inspections. Reportedly, city health inspectors failed to report the life-threatening conditions at the facilities. Inspections from 2003 through February 2008 did not report unsafe conditions. Cincinnati City Council will have a hearing next month to determine why the facilities' unsafe conditions went undetected for so long. State health inspectors have nearly 200 pages of violations at the facilities.
The coverup was revealed on February 25 when Officer Aaron Layton went to the facility searching for a suspect. He was shocked with what he found and obtained a search warrant. Two weeks later, dozens of police officers and city and state health inspectors raided the facilities.
Among other things, the raid uncovered:
* vomit in hallways
* pipes held together with shoe string
* unsafe medication storage
* smoking near oxygen tanks
* 20% medication errors - nearly four times the acceptable rate
* no staff member trained to deal with psychological problems - although every resident had some degree of mental illness
* cigarette butts in the hallways
* mold on walls
* inaccessible fire doors
* roach-infested rooms
* soiled mattresses
* fire doors tied shut
The owner of the facilities, Abe Fischer, was fined $100,000 and faces criminal charges of violating Cincinnati's fire and building codes. Mr. Fischer maintains that the facilities are clean and safe, but that state and advocacy groups are trying to shut him down.
