Des Moines nursing home inspection cites free roaming rodents, leaks,… | Latest Lifestyle News
A Des Moines nursing home has been cited for “free roaming” rodents, leaking ceilings, a flooded kitchen and an infestation of mice, flies and cockroaches that may have contributed to recent resident illnesses.
Inspectors from the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing visited Azria Health Park Place at 2401 E. Eighth St. in Des Moines, during the first two weeks of September and cited the facility for insufficient staffing and failing to provide a clean, homelike environment. The visit was in response to nine separate complaints, according to state records.
On Sept. 3, the first day of the state inspection, the home halted all food service from the kitchen and ordered meals from outside providers while the staff began cleaning and sanitizing the kitchen to address the state’s findings that residents of the home were in immediate jeopardy.
Azria Health Park Place in Des Moines.
The inspectors reported standing water in the building, bed mattresses the staff described as “soiled and disgusting,” rooms the inspectors said “reeked of urine,” and mold-like substances in the kitchen and in the window air conditioners placed in residents’ rooms. In the activity-supply room and housekeeping office, inspectors reported, the ceilings tiles had collapsed and a “dry, brown liquid streamed down the wall from the ceiling toward the floor.”
In the shower room, “grayish and brown, mud-like” debris marred the floor and the cracked shower tiles. In one resident’s room, a nurse lifted up the floor mats that were surrounding a resident who was “lying on a mattress on the floor,” inspectors said, revealing crumbs, dirt and debris.
According to the inspectors’ written findings, one of the home’s residents reported that the “bathroom ceiling in his room caved in and it flooded the entire room, then it flooded into the whole hallway this past summer.”
Other residents complained of being left to sit in urine, adding that the home “smelled like pee all of the time,” they could hear mice in the ceiling, and there were “many places” in the home where it dripped water after raining.
Rodent droppings, pooled water and mold
The home also was reportedly short on wound-care supplies, bed linens, gloves, wipes and the briefs used by incontinent residents, with one worker saying a female resident “sat in a pool of urine because they did not have big enough briefs or pads for her.” The worker allegedly said she “had to stash briefs,” hiding them in the building, so the residents she cared for would have them when needed.
State inspectors also reported the kitchen and the home’s basement area had significant water damage, as evidenced by collapsing ceiling tiles and the smell of spoilage and dampness.
“The entire floor of the kitchen appeared caked in sticky substances and food particles,” an inspector reported. “Numerous sticky traps were found with one of them showing what appeared to be rodent droppings, light grey fur, and numerous insects near the kitchen dry-storage area.”
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According to the inspectors, records indicated that in May, “large standing pools of water” had accumulated in a hallway of the building and in the kitchen.
On Sept. 3, the inspectors found peaches with an expiration date of Aug. 24, and the home’s director of food services allegedly reported the peaches had been served to residents that morning. Worm-like insects were seen on the kitchen floor, as were what appeared to be insect eggs, the inspectors added.
The inspectors also reported finding rodent droppings in the kitchen near the stove and a “collection of coffee creamers” that were marred by “a mold-like substance with a strong smell growing on it. This mold-like substance was also found in all of the kitchen floor drains.”
In addition, the inspectors noted that the equipment “throughout the kitchen appeared to be covered in a layer of grime,” and cooking surfaces were “visibly blackened and appeared to not have been cleaned in some time.”
The rodent activity in the kitchen was so pervasive that fresh rodent droppings were spotted by inspectors during the inspection itself within minutes of the floor having been swept.
Manager: Years of neglect led to ‘mess’ in kitchen
The kitchen-cleaning logs indicated the area had last been cleaned in April or May, the inspectors reported. The home’s dietary aide allegedly told inspectors he had seen “rodents in the kitchen every single day since he started,” which was around January.
The aide allegedly stated that the kitchen flooded periodically, and that the last serious flood had been the month before, in August, adding that he had seen what he believed to be “cockroaches in the kitchen for a long time,” as well as a “significant number of flies.” A cook allegedly reported seeing one or two mice per day while working, adding that there were also problems with ants, crickets and flies.
Both the dietary aide and the cook indicated the kitchen was difficult to keep clean as it was simply too dirty and prone to flooding during periods of heavy rain. The situation had been “going on for years,” the cook allegedly told inspectors.
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The inspectors reported they also spoke to the home’s dietary manager, who allegedly said he “felt the kitchen was in extremely poor shape. He stated the kitchen has known issues with flies, cockroaches, and rodents that he believes to be mice. He stated the mice infestation is so bad they are catching one to two mice a day on glue traps since he started. He stated he has no idea how the kitchen got that bad and stated it was a mess.”
According to inspectors, the dietary manager also reported that a week before the inspectors arrived, he had picked up a box of food in the dry-storage area “and it contained a mouse nest” and indications that rodents had chewed into the side of the box. The manager allegedly added that in the past few weeks, he had “personally found at least 8-plus mice on sticky traps within the facility, with other mice seen free roaming the facility.” The state of the kitchen, the manager allegedly told inspectors, stemmed from “years of neglect.”
The home’s acting administrator at that time — identified in corporate and state records as Kristin Pauley, who also served as the parent company’s regional director of operations — reportedly told inspectors she had only recently been informed of rodent activity in the building. When the inspector asked Pauley when she had last been in the kitchen, Pauley allegedly stated she had not been there “in a while.”
The inspectors reported Pauley told them she “had never seen a mouse” in the nursing home, adding, “Thank goodness. I don’t do critters.”
Two-hour wait for call-light to be answered
While inspectors were in the building, one of them heard a resident hollering and found a woman yelling that her roommate needed help as she had been left on the toilet for a half-hour and couldn’t sit there any longer. “The emergency call-light was flashing, and the call-light was lit in the room,” the inspector noted.
A few minutes later, another resident called out to the inspector, saying someone needed to “help the little boy” who had been hollering for 20 minutes to get out of the bathroom. A subsequent review of the call-light data at the home indicated residents often had to wait more than 15 minutes for the staff to respond, with some of the waits extending to more than two hours.
A certified nurse aide allegedly told inspectors she had seen cockroaches and mice in the building for months but that management downplayed the issue and told the staff the cockroaches were “just water bugs and the mice weren’t a problem.” A housekeeping supervisor reportedly told the inspectors she had seen mouse droppings in residents’ dressers.
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The CNA and a licensed practical nurse said they had noticed an increase in vomiting and diarrhea among the residents during the past month, and a nurse reported the facility “ran out of briefs” for residents during that time.
A female resident of home allegedly told inspectors she had “diarrhea all of the time” — an issue she hadn’t experienced until moving into the home. A male resident complained “he had projectile vomiting for three weeks,” the inspectors reported.
One staff member at the home allegedly told inspectors she could not eat the food served by the home as she had experienced “diarrhea all day when she ate the food.”
The staff also noted numerous residents had complained about the quality of their meals in the last month. One resident reportedly told inspectors that while he had seen no mice in his room, he sees flies “all the time” and complained that the food at times was “gross.”
Administrator: Staff is working to improve care
State records indicate the inspections department proposed, but held in suspension, an $8,000 fine for failing to maintain the facility in a manner that keeps the facility free from pests and protects the 59 residents from food-borne illnesses. The inspections agency typically holds state fines in suspension so the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can decide whether to impose a federal fine in the matter.
This marks the third consecutive year in which Azria Health Park Place has been cited for a failure to provide residents with a clean, safe, homelike environment.
The new administrator of the home, Rand Rasmussen, said the facility’s roof was recently repaired and the home has undertaken extensive efforts to clean the building and address all of the issues cited by inspectors, including long response times to call lights. There have been no sightings of vermin in the building since inspectors left on Sept. 11, Rasmussen said.
“Going forward,” he said, “we are wanting to change the standard of care that’s being received here and provide a more safe experience for the residents so they can obviously have a better-quality experience here.”
Federal records indicate Azria Health Park Place is owned by the for-profit Azria Health chain and its affiliate by BCP Union Park, with Aaron Kaminer having operational or managerial control of the companies. Chief Operating Officer Carrie Raemakers did not immediately respond to calls from the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Azria Health Park Place has a one-star rating on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ five-star scale for overall care, inspection results and quality measures.
CMS reports that it has imposed no federal penalties against Azria Health Park Place in the past three years. During that same period, CMS reports, there have been 68 complaints pertaining to resident care at the home that have resulted in a citation by inspectors.
Federal records indicate Azria Health operates at least nine nursing homes or assisted living centers in Iowa and Kansas. Collectively, the nursing homes have a below-average quality rating from CMS.
Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines nursing home inspection cites mice, roaches, grime, mold
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