The owners of St. Louis-based Northview Village nursing home, which closed without warning in December, have been fined $56,310, by CMS the St. Louis Dispatch reported Feb. 29.
The abrupt closure of the facility, which was the largest nursing home in the city, initially left 100 workers without pay and prompted transfers for 185 patients, but departing the facility was not a smooth process, according to a report from the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services.
Officials even stepped in to allocate $174,000 to help affected residents and their families.
Among the several deficiencies outlined, the report found that the leadership failed to create a move-out protocol in advance of its closure, which likely led to some of the patient safety issues that occurred during the process.
"The facility failed to take measures to ensure security of the residents and staff during the evacuation, and failed to secure resident belongings from theft," the report obtained by St. Louis Dispatch states. "The failures jeopardized the health and safety for all residents and staff."
Not only that, but phones went down, an elevator stalled with nine people inside it, patients were rapidly moved to other facilities at midnight, one patient with schizophrenia wandered away during the chaos and wasn't found until weeks later, one manager walked out and another stayed in their office while the events played out, according to the DHHS report.
In another instance, a patient was moved without "pants, no shoes, no socks, and a lot of their personal items were stolen," Jamie Opsal, executive director of the St. Louis City Senior Fund, told St. Louis Public Radio.
"Given what happened here, I think it's a fine that's well below what the egregious behavior of this operator merits," Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, an advocacy group, told the St. Louis Dispatch.
If the owners of the nursing home agree to waive their right to a hearing, the penalty will be reduced by 35%, according to the St. Louis Dispatch.
"There are, unfortunately, many opportunities available to operators to get a fine reduced or eliminated altogether," Mollot added. "There is no opportunity for the public, for families, for residents, to say, 'This fine should be more.'"