Only Time Will Tell
Posted by Kim on January 22nd, 2007 / Print This Post
A Louisiana Nursing Home in trouble…and management mincing words about it all.
Thursday was not a good day for some Washington Parish residents. Despite repeated failures by Resthaven Living Center to come into compliance, enough was finally enough and the state and federal government had to pull its Medicaid and Medicare certification.Actually, the certification was lost last October - as was first reported in this newspaper - but ongoing efforts by the state to get the owners and administration to bring the facility into compliance were a failure.
On Thursday, a meeting was held at Resthaven to announce options for residents. State Sen. Ben Nevers admitted during the meeting that when he arrived, he expected to hear the announcement that the owners had decided to close the facility.
They did not, thanks to the efforts of minority owner representing Mickey Mitchell and minority owner Steve Pigott.
But many in attendance came just hours after receiving a letter from the state, postmarked Jan. 16, that Resthaven had lost its Medicaid and Medicare certification and residents would have to do something.
For some, that means finding a new place to live, but to residents of a facility such as Resthaven, it is more than a place to live.
“We don’t want to move,” one resident, sitting in her wheelchair, cried out as the meeting drug on. “We like it here.”
That the facility had multiple repeat violations is a given. Time and again, the same violations showed up and that’s what proved to be the facility’s undoing.
But as DHH’s Bob Johannessen told this newspaper in October, it is not unusual for a nursing home to experience deficiencies that put them on a track to lose certification. What is unusual, he added, was the lack of effort on the part of the facility to try and come into compliance.
It was disclosed Thursday night that DHH and those within that agency who work with Medicaid and Medicare went over and above, trying to keep what turned out to be the inevitable from happening.
Mitchell said as much, making a sweeping hand gesture as he said, “These ladies have done everything in the world to try and help us.”
He added that it was the fault of the administration and owners that the facility - and the 59 affected residents - are in the situation they find themselves in today.
He, and administrator Kevin Butler, both said things will change for the better.
Nevers said only time will tell.
In the meantime, we’ll all be watching.