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The Paramount at Somers Rehabilitation and Nursing Center has received a total of 17 citations for being in violation of public health code since 2018 after state inspectors found multiple deficiencies within the center.

The Paramount at Somers Rehabilitation and Nursing Center has received 17 citations for violations of public health code between 2018 and 2021, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on February 25, 2022. The Somers nursing home’s citations resulted from a total of six surveys by state inspectors. The deficiencies they describe include the following:

1. The nursing home did not adequately prevent accidents. Section 483.25 of the Federal Code stipulates that nursing homes must provide residents with adequate supervision and assistant devices to prevent them from sustaining accidents. An August 2021 citation found that The Paramount at Somers failed to ensure such. The citation specifically describes an instance in which a nursing assistant left a lunch tray containing a “hot beverage” in a resident’s room unsupervised. The resident later stated that they spilled the beverage on themself, sustaining a burn on their side and thigh. In an interview, a registered nurse supervisor stated that nursing assistants “are not supposed to leave meal trays in rooms of residents that require assistance with eating for safety reasons.” The facility’s Director of Nursing attested in a separate interview that “Trays should not be left at the bedside due to safety concerns.” A plan of correction undertaken by the facility included the education of nursing staff.

State authorities fined a Connecticut nursing home for allegedly allowing their staffers to steal money from the residents. According to The Connecticut Post, the nursing home did not even report the thefts when they became aware of their staffer’s criminal conduct. The thefts are part of a broader elder abuse problem in the nursing home industry. According to a USA Today report, nursing home facilities frequently lack safeguards and appropriate oversight that could prevent their resident’s money from being easily stolen by staffers.

In Connecticut, state authorities are trying to crack down on the problem. At Westport Rehabilitation Complex, the state agency responsible for nursing home oversight fined the facility $8,000 after an investigation revealed that 20 residents had money stolen from their resident trust funds. Commonly, nursing homes manage the finances of their residents through facility-controlled resident trust funds. Legally, the nursing home is responsible for managing and investing the savings of each resident’s trust account. Despite this legal responsibility, financial abuse of the elderly can run rampant in some facilities. At Westport Rehabilitation Complex, withdrawal documents from several of the stolen trust accounts are covered in white-out. A grand total of $3,161 was stolen from residents at the Connecticut nursing home. When reached for comment, Westport Rehabilitation Complex said the felonious staffer was fired.

Unfortunately, stealing from nursing home residents appears to be a nationwide problem. USA Today reports that more than 1,500 cases of theft have been reported in just the last year. The national newspaper says these cases varied wildly – from small, one-time thefts to embezzling hundreds of thousands from vulnerable senior citizens across the country’s nursing homes. A lack of sufficient oversight is generally to blame, according to Ken Moore of South Carolina’s Medicaid Fraud Unit. Moore told USA Today, “I do think there’s an oversight issue… There aren’t a lot of safeguards in the system.” Describing how thousands can be stolen, Moore says, “A lot of these cases involve an office manager or a business or finance manager, and they’re the only ones at the facility who really know how much money is coming in and going out of these accounts.”

Workers at twenty nursing homes across Connecticut are preparing to strike if their salary demands are not met. According to the Fox 61, caregivers represented by the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199 SEIU, plan to strike on June 3 if the state does not increase its wages. According to the local news report, nursing home staffers did not receive a raise in 2017 or 2018. Last year, the raise was only 2 percent – less than the annual rate of inflation and adding only 30 cents for “most workers.” Under the current budget, nursing home staff will not receive any raise in 2019 or 2012. The nursing union says it will not call off the strike unless all caregivers receive a 4 percent increase in wages. The estimated cost would be $40 million, according to labor officials.

According to the nurse’s union, stagnate wages for another two years would be unacceptable. “More than 2,500 nursing home caregivers will be forced to walk out of their jobs until proper funding is provided to raise their take-home pay,” Rob Baril, president of SEIU 1199 New England, told Fox 61. According to Baril, “some members” of the nurses union are currently making “as little as $10.93 an hour.” Baril did not mention how many caregivers in his union made such low salaries before noting that the hourly pay was less than one dollar higher than the state’s minimum wage. Baril says that the union will not call off its strike unless all caregivers receive a 4 percent raise.

The union and state have been operating without a contract since 2015. After failing to reach an agreement for the last four years, the negotiations this year have been unsurprisingly fraught. Just last week, SEIU 119 New England called off a nursing strike originally set to take place on May 1. According to the union, state officials agreed to continue negotiations with the union if it rescheduled the walk-out. Now, an estimated 7,000 nurses plan to walk off the job on June 3 if a new agreement between the union and the state is not signed. Given four years of fruitless negotiations and stagnant pay, it seems likely the nursing home caregivers in Connecticut will be striking next month.

The federal government is currently backing $20 billion in mortgages to the nursing home industry, including over $2 billion just in New York State. According to elder care advocates, the federal program originally meant to ensure a sufficient number of nursing homes is now widely abused and lacks sufficient oversight. According to The New York Times, the majority of these loans, which banks deem too risky without the federal government guarantee, are taken out by private, for-profit nursing homes. Unsurprisingly, this program has left the federal government on the hook for failing nursing homes and their missed mortgage payments. Last year, nursing home businesses defaulted on $146 million in government-backed mortgages.

Given the inadequate supervision of the nursing home industry, the problems will likely get worse before they get better. Problems with the federal loan program began in 1995 when the program only supported 800 nursing homes. At the time, a Government Accountability report found that nursing homes “generally do not focus attention on nursing home loans unless financial trouble appears imminent or a default occurs.” The report went on to excoriate the lack of adequate oversight and the potential for widespread abuse going forward. Since that time, the federal program has almost tripled in size – to 2,300 nursing homes comprising 15 percent of the country’s total.

With the increase in for-profit nursing homes, the problems with the program have become even worse. In some circumstances, nursing homes have continued to pay lavish salaries to executives while missing their mortgage payments at the same time. One nursing home quit paying its mortgage within several months of assuming ownership and then used federal money meant to prop up the nursing for other purposes. When the nursing home finally collapsed, the federal government took over and currently pumps almost $1 million each month into the grossly-mismanaged facilities.