NorCo County Council member Kelly Keegan dislikes all the negative attention that Gracedale receives. She has argued it just depresses the people who work there. Medicare disagrees. It maintains a public website that lists every nursing home and rates them based on health inspections, staffing, and quality measures. Gracedale's latest rating, as I told you last week, is just one star, meaning it is "much below average."
How does this compare to other homes, including privately-owned facilities? There are 45 nursing homes within a 25-mile radius of Gracedale. Aside from Gracedale, only two other homes have a one-star rating. They are Sapphire Care and Rehab Center (E Stroudsburg, Pa) and Little Brook Nursing and Convalescent Home (Chalfont, NJ). Of the three homes with this one-star rating, only Gracedale has been flagged for abuse. "Nursing homes that have been cited for potential issues related to abuse have the following icon next to their name: 
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"The abuse designation at Gracedale is no doubt the result of an agency nurse who, believing she was an exorcist, attempted to perform an exorcism on a resident back in June. But there have been a rash of six substantiated complaints against the home since March, including three instances in which residents just left and had to be brought back by police.
Recently, the home was flagged again for abuse, although this time it was an abusive resident who assaulted another resident who was wandering and entered the abusive resident's room. The abused resident was hospitalized with a broken coccyx and a head injury.
18 comments:
In fairness to Keegan, she is just parroting what she is told to say by McClure and his lemmings. It has been clear he does not want anyone including council to question his decisions. However, since he claims to have saved Gracedale(just the opposite) from being sold he feels no one should question him on it. He does not even think County council should mention it. So, we all know poor Kelly is not too bright, but she is only following orders.
Many of these instances can be eliminated simply by ensuring that staffing levels are adequate to handle resident care and monitoring. I've seen entire tower floors covered by one nurse, and two CNA's for a full 8 hour shift. This is unacceptable and, quite frankly, dangerous. With agency staffing instead of full and part time county employees, they are never sure who's gonna show up to work.
At least KK is consistent. She is always out of step with reality.
There is no doubt in my mind that as much as the county tries to keep Gracedale, with all of its problems and the added cost of the agency nurses, its a place that is like a money pit and either it needs to be professionally taken over by the right people or sold.. The county needs to stop putting good money into bad.
Let’s be clear about mimicking McClure, EVERY ONE of these council people KNEW of the pre-existing problems that , for years, consistently reared their heads at Gracedale’s. How many council people ever did ANYTHING to research or look into SOLVING them, instead of just complaining? Who is the delegated council representative having oversight of the home? Which council person suggested visiting other nursing homes or checking on professional nursing home management ? I doubt any. McClure knew of the problems, but he was not alone. Let’s stop the whining for the new year, and for once, take responsibility and act as a governing body should and do something.
Gracedale administration has created this nightmare in a failed attempt to increase census. One need only look at the diagnoses of those individuals admitted to determine that they have mostly psychiatric disorders with potentially dangerous outcomes for individuals who care for them and with whom they reside. It appears the police were called for one of the incidents. Any one with a frail elderly or disabled family member needs to know the documented risks of admitting them to Gracedale. No sympathy for Kelly Keegan since she is a nurse by occupation and she should be appalled and not be applauding the apparent situation at Gracedale. The PA state site is public knowledge and provides a clear picture of the reported events at Gracedale and every other facility in PA. The “plans of correction “ are consistently “will train staff by” and report to QAPI at Gracedale. Yet, nothing changes there and the reports are increasingly troubling. Tara will have the answers, I’m sure (not) along with all of the newly elected council members.
County council only approves the budget. The administration is responsible for day to day operations. Council has very little power over any of these matters except for budgets. There is no council member that is “in charge” of Gracedale.
Then council needs to publicly question the executive and administration so the taxpayers of Norco understand the dire situation there. I certainly don’t want my tax dollars supporting resident abuse. Guess I see what happens to council members who do speak up, though. They are called “liars” and are not reelected to the council.
Council this council thta, WHERE TH EhELL IS TH EhuMAN seRVICES dIRECTOR? sHE IS REPSONSOIBLE FPR
The Human Services Director is responsible for Gracedale. Where is she? What has she done? Has she been reviewing policy? If Zirinski si keeping all these McClure people, Tara better be sure. The last thing you said about her she forgot?? to give the council ordered report on Gracedale to the administrator., other than praise her boss, does she do anything else?
Tara will have the answer? For years she heard the problems, now you think she can fix this? She has a lot of real estate to catch up on, just to get started.
Wrong. County council has the responsibility to ensure Gracedsle operates and is managed within the budget restraints given. Council people , each one, is responsible to vote for continuing operational success, and yes, there is a council person who heads a committee oversight of the home. Do your HR homework before inserting your foot in your mouth.
Ruffled feathers, apparently.
Never gonna happen
Maybe she reads this blog?
Zirinsky has no clue of how to operate a nursing home, nor has she learned anything from her years on council, and small time as controller , on management of the second largest county owned home. She is coming in green as a rookie.
Oversight of Gracedale’s is doomed
The new director flip flops on leaving her position, nearly weekly. Get out of the way and find someone, anyone with a clue
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