Coronavirus: NJ nursing home under fire for poor conditions
Many are holding the facility as a symbol of how nursing homes and other healthcare facilities are struggling as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread throughout the US.
By AARON REICHParamedics and healthcare officials are seen outside Andover Subacute and Rehab Center, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Andover, New Jersey, U.S., April 16, 2020.(photo credit: REUTERS/STEFAN JEREMIAH)
New Jersey police have discovered 17 bodies stuffed into a small morgue at a nursing home linked to Israeli investors. Accusations about the facility’s failings amid the coronavirus outbreak are emerging.The Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, located in Andover, New Jersey, is one of the largest facilities of its kind in the northeastern US, with 700 beds.The coronavirus outbreak has exposed its unpreparedness for a major crisis.This was brought to mainstream media attention when an anonymous tip alerted Andover police of improper storage of corpses, The New York Times reported.Police found 17 corpses packed into a small morgue that was intended to hold up to four bodies.More than 100 of the nursing home’s residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19, while at least 180 other residents and staff have respiratory or flu-like symptoms, NPR reported.The facility is said to be a symbol of how nursing homes and other healthcare facilities are struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.The facility was “just overwhelmed by the number of people who were expiring,” Andover Township Police Department Chief Eric Danielson said.In a statement to the Times, the lawyer for the facility’s operators, former state attorney-general Christopher Porrino, said: “Andover Subacute is on the front lines of this crisis, cooperating with public health officials to prioritize patient safety while caring for the remains of patients who have tragically passed, including a surge of those lost over the Easter holiday, even as New Jersey’s morgues and funeral homes are being overrun by this deadly disease.”This is not the first time the facility has had trouble. Over the past two years, it has been hit with poor grades by state and federal inspectors, the Times reported. It has less than 200 square meters per resident, and residents have on average of 46 minutes per day with a nurse, compared with the state average of 100 minutes.The facility was also the subject of a police report in January 2019, when a resident walked out of a locked unit through broken doors and was found at 4:30 a.m. barefoot on ice-covered ground with severe frostbite, NBC reported.Accusations are also being leveled at the facility building’s owners, Altitude Investments, which had insisted that the crisis was under control. According to a letter sent to investors in Israel, two residents were hospitalized as of April 2, but others were treated in the facility while residents were being separated to stem the spread of the virus.According to an email sent by Altitude Investments president William Rothner, the information in the letter “was based on information provided by the [facility’s] operator,” Alliance Healthcare, which is co-owned by Chaim Scheinbaum and Louis Schwartz, the Times reported.According to public records, this is not the first time Schwartz has been embroiled in controversy in the industry. He previously served as vice president of Skyline Healthcare, a now-defunct nursing-home chain that is the subject of numerous lawsuits after being accused of neglect and mismanagement, NBC reported.The discovery of 17 bodies was horrifying, but the revelation of Schwartz’s involvement made the situation worse, Toby Edelman, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy, told NBC.“To learn that the owners were former executives of a nursing-home chain that abandoned facilities across the country in 2017 and 2018, creating chaos for residents, staff and states, magnifies the horror,” she said.Schwartz functioned as a “silent partner” in the Andover facility, Scheinbaum told NBC, but he was not sure what his role was at Skyline.In response to surveys from the state and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the New Jersey State Health Department issued citations against the Andover facility. Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli told Scheinbaum a plan of corrections to the facility would be required by Monday, MSN reported.
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