Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

Southtown Nursing and Ventilator Care, located in Bixby, Oklahoma, was been cited for thirty-six violations of state and federal nursing home regulations. While violations were found during an annual inspection, the facility also has two pending complaints. Of the 102 beds available, the facility currently has forty-two residents.

Maintaining resident dignity appears to be a problem at Southtown. A quadriplegic resident, paralyzed as a result of a spinal cord injury, was found completely unkept in his wheelchair on August 26, 2008. His facial hair was long and matted with white flakes in his beard, the skin on his heel was thick with large patches of white loose skin, and his toenails were broken off, jagged, and dirty. His fingernails were dirty as well and a thumbnail was at least a half-inch long. He told the inspectors "my thumb nail needs to be cut. No one here has done any nail care for me. My dad tries to keep my nails done. I was clean shaven when I was admitted. They have attempted to shave me twice." He had been a resident at the facility for two and a half months.

The inspectors saw this resident again the following day. This time, he was wearing disposable incontinent pad as a brief. Inspectors questioned him about his "brief" and he replied, "Yes, they're doing everything as cheap as they can on me." On the next day, the man was in his bed without a brief or a pad and his buttocks showing. He stated, "I don't have a brief on. My butt's showing." He could not reposition himself or pull up his sheet due to his paralysis.

Another resident was found with a dried bowel movement on their gown and thigh. There was a strong ammonia smell noted and the underside of the resident's incontinent pad was soaked through. The aide cleaned the resident, changed her, raised her bed, and turned the tube feeding back on without ever changing her gloves or washing her hands.

The facility had a strong urine, feces, and body odor throughout the building and the odor remained for the five day inspection. In addition to the citation for failure to maintain resident dignity, the facility was cited for failure to establish and maintain an infection control program, failure to maintain a medication error rate of 5% or lower, failure to provide timely urinary incontinence care and that would prevent infection, failure to maintain a clean and sanitary environment, failure to implement doctor's orders to prevent bed sores, failure to implement policies that would prohibit resident abuse, neglect, and mistreatment, and failure to meet residents' nutritional needs and implement interventions to prevent weight loss.

A plan of correction was submitted by the facility and that plan was rejected on October 14, 2008. Interestingly, the facility owner, Scott Pilgrim purchased the facility after coming to the facility one day to visit his grandmother. He was angry over the way it was being run, so he purchased it. He has owned the facility for approximately fifteen months and feels it is vastly improved from the way it was. He minimized the citations by saying "one tag is too many, but the surveyors could write over 210 violations and we only had 36".