New Jersey Takes Control of Nursing Home with DOH Concerned for Residents’ Lives:
Prior to the stepping in of the state, the Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center in Andover, named one of New Jersey’s 15 worst-performing nursing homes for failing to prevent nursing home abuse and neglect, had its license revoked and its federal funding pulled. The more than 350 residents of Woodland may now need to be relocated.
In the wake of unrelenting issues related to nursing home abuse and neglect at the Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center in Andover, a Superior Court judge took control away from the owners, says a NJ.com article. Earlier last month, serious unresolved problems led to the revocation of the facility’s license and the pulling by federal regulators of Medicaid and Medicare funding.
In a May 27 hearing during which lawyers for the Department of Health argued that residents were in jeopardy, Sussex County Superior Court Judge Frank J. DeAngelis appointed a turnaround expert to operate Woodland in place of the facility’s owners. Woodland is operated by Alliance Healthcare Holdings of Lakewood; the owner of the building who leases it to Alliance is BNJD Mulford Property, LLC. Temporary restraints will furthermore prevent the home’s owners from transferring assets or incurring any new liabilities in advance of the next hearing scheduled for July 7.
Among the more disconcerting incidents of nursing home abuse and neglect at Woodland as revealed by recent health inspections and other probes of the facility include the following:
- Two Woodford residents who were hospitalized were discovered to have impacted bowels. In the case of one of the residents, the obstruction had gone undetected, leaving the resident susceptible to a perforated colon, sepsis, and, potentially, wrongful death. The other resident had been given a feeding tube despite the colon obstruction. As the tube could not properly dispense due to the blockage, the food backed up, causing the resident to aspirate and develop pneumonia, an often deadly nursing home infection.
- One 55-year-old resident who’d suffered a heart attack and was found not breathing was not administered any kind of pre-hospital resuscitation.
- One resident who sustained a bedsore was left soiled in feces for ten hours overnight, leaving the resident vulnerable to the deterioration of the pressure ulcer and to the development of a serious nursing home infection.
- Woodford operated with an extreme shortage of certified nurses aids during a two-week period from late December into January, and has since operated with only half the workers mandated by New Jersey.
In court filings prior to the hearing, the DOH called for the transfer of all residents from Woodford, saying the facility posed an “immediate and serious risk of harm to the health, safety, and welfare of long-term care residents”; New Jersey takes control of nursing home with DOH concerned for residents’ lives as a result.
Woodland first made the news early in the pandemic, when a morgue meant for no more than four bodies was discovered with the bodies of 17 victims of COVID-19 stuffed inside. The home is also part of a recent gross negligence, wrongful death, and medical malpractice lawsuit by the families of loved ones who died from COVID at Woodland and its sister home, Limecrest Subacute and Rehabilitation Center (each formerly known as Andover Subacute & Rehabilitation I & II) during the height of the pandemic.
Fighting for Your Loved One
Determining the quality and safety of the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives is essential. Meeting health and safety standards and to ensuring the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents is a requirement to which Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes must adhere. Should you have concerns about the quality of care in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.
