Meadow Park Rehabilitation and Health Care Center received 27 citations for violations of public health laws between 2015 and 2019, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on December 12, 2019. The facility was also the subject of a 2017 fine of $4,000 in connection to findings it did not provide residents with an environment free of accident hazards. The Flushing nursing home’s citations resulted from a total of five inspections by state authorities. The violations they describe include the following:
1. The nursing home facility did not implement adequate measures to prevent residents from sustaining accidents. Under Section 483.25 of the Federal Code, nursing homes must ensure residents have an environment “as free of accident hazards as is possible.” An October 2016 citation states that the nursing home failed to protect all 135 of its residents from the risk of experiencing “burns and scalding” resulting from “excessive hot water temperatures from the facility’s domestic hot water system.” An inspector found specifically that the water in 17 resident rooms were “extremely hot,” and in fact “so hot that the surveyors had to remove their hands.” A reading found that the hot water temperatures in resident bathrooms and shower units ranged from 127 degrees Fahrenheit to 137 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas the “acceptable temperature range” was 90 degrees to 120 degrees. This deficiency, which was connected to the 2017 fine of $4,000, was found to have resulted in “Immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety.”
2. The nursing home did not keep residents free from abuse and neglect. Section 483.12 of the Federal Code requires nursing homes to protect their residents’ right to freedom from “abuse, neglect, misappropriation of resident property, and exploitation.” A March 2018 citation found that the nursing home failed to comply with this sanction in an instance in which a Certified Nursing Assistant “willfully neglected to provide care and services” to a resident who was “incontinent of bowel and used incontinence briefs.” The citation specifically states that when the resident’s family requested on three instances that the Assistant “change the resident’s soiled incontinence brief,” the Assistant willfully declined to do so, resulting in “the resident sitting in a soiled diaper” for more than two hours.
3. The nursing home did not take adequate measures to dispose of garbage and refuse. Section 483.60 of the Federal Code states that nursing homes must “dispose of garbage and refuse properly.” A June 2019 citation found that the nursing home failed to comply with this section. An inspector specifically observed that a garbage dumpster by the facility’s loading dock was not cleaned and kept in good condition. The inspector observed “an opaque colored leak with a foul odor” emitting from the dumpster, whose base was found to be “rusted and dirty, with liquid draining” from it onto the sidewalk and street. In an interview, the facility’s Director of Building Services attributed the odor to two leaks beneath the garbage compactor, and said the facility had contacted the “compactor company… to fix the leak.”
The attorneys at the Law Offices of Thomas L. Gallivan, PLLC work diligently to protect the rights of nursing home residents. Please contact us to discuss in the event you have a potential case involving neglect or abuse.
