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When there is one complaint there are many more…and the one serious issue opens the can of worms.

Relatives of patients at a Twin Falls nursing home are alleging the facility is mistreating its residents and has failed to provide hot water to patients’ rooms for nine days.

Twin Falls Care Center says residents were without hot water only over the weekend, but declined comment on other accusations.

“I think everybody has a different perception of what’s been going on,” said Kelly Spiers, administrator of the 116-bed skilled nursing facility at 674 Eastland Drive.

A new water pump was ordered Thursday when hot water went out at the home, Spiers said. Hot water was still available in the home’s kitchen and laundry room. The hot water was temporarily restored Thursday, failed again Friday and was not repaired until Sunday because the replacement pump was damaged in transit.

Relatives of some patients aren’t sure that’s true, even after meeting with staff Sunday afternoon.

“My mom hasn’t had a bath since she’s been here,” said Butch Malone, whose mother arrived at the care center Dec. 10.

Other patients have been bathed with alcohol wipes, relatives said.

No hot water? No big deal…

Read the administrators remarks about the cold water:

The facility declined to respond to allegations beyond the water problem. “The hot water doesn’t really do anything for us if we’re using microbial soaps,” Spiers said. “But yeah, we’d all like to take hot showers.”

Let’s make her take a cold shower or bath; let her go without a good washup for several days and see how she feels THEN. What a tool she is. People like her don’t belong in this business.

Manor Care is complaining, already, about the loss of profit in West Virginia.

The nation’s largest nursing home chain wants the state Health Care Authority to give immediate approval to the sale of the company’s seven West Virginia facilities to a private equity firm.

HCR Manor Care executives say the nursing home chain’s shareholders — including the West Virginia pension fund — are losing more than $1 million every day the deal is delayed. The West Virginia Investment Board, which manages state pension plans, holds about 161,000 shares of Manor Care stock.

We see here that states invest in these groups- probably without really knowing the effects of the deal upon resident care.

And we see the return of investment is high: A million bucks off of frail residents who need better staffing and better care, but won’t get that simply because it’s not cost effective. A million bucks a day.

In PA, the Manor Care deal has been approved.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Manor Care Inc (HCR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has received approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Health for its proposed $6.3 billion sale to private equity firm Carlyle Group CYL.UL, Manor Care said in a statement on Monday.

If I were a partner in the Manor Care leader team, I would be fighting back allegations of poor care, budget cutting extreme charges; I would be putting word out there of the good services offered; I would show examples of all the high performing facilities. I would share the improvements made to nursing homes. I would offer up a list of ALL CMS data on the nursing homes managed by Manor Care- so that people can decide for themselves whether this deal is good or bad. In other words, I would justify the 1 million a day profit by showing what it does, quality care wise, to the frail and elderly folks being served.