Ohio "Crack House" Nursing Home - UPDATE
In previous blogs, we discussed the horrific conditions that residents at Westside Health Care Center were living under. A police raid of the facility in March 2008 found soiled mattresses, vomit in the halls, roach-infested rooms and doors tied shut, among other horrors. Five years of annual inspections had not revealed any problems at the facility.
Abe Fischer, the owner and operator of the Cincinnati facility, closed the facility before a hearing to determine whether or not to revoke the license of the facility could take place this week. Fischer sold the state certificate of need required to operate the facility as a nursing home and the residents of the facility have moved. He still owns a residential care facility next door to the closed facility and hopes to combine the buildings into a single residential care facility next year. His ability to do this hinges on the approval of Ohio city and state health officials, who found dozens of health and safety violations at both of Fischer's facilities this year. The fate of Fischer's other facility, the Terrace at Westside, still is in question. Health Commissioner Noble Maserus will decide shortly if that facility's license will be revoked.
Fischer alleges that the problems at Westside and the Terrace at Westside were exaggerated by police and community activists who don't like him.
