State Home Cited for Splitting Elderly Couple

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

When they tried to take her husband of 58 years from their room at a state run nursing home, she barricaded herself in the front of the room and declared he wasn't going anywhere and she was in charge.
In the 27-page document that seemed more like the script of a tragic love story than an official state inspection report, the document details a series of events at the Hollidaysburg Veterans Center that led to the elderly couple's forced separation.
Though she had been declared competent and capable of making her own medical decisions, the trouble began in late May when the unnamed woman was observed giving her husband, a stroke victim, thin liquids when he was ordered thickened liquids.
On June 18 she was observed trying to feed her husband a cinnamon roll while he was lying down.
Staff tried to "educate" the woman that the patient shouldn't be fed in bed, the report states.
The resident "was upset and said she wanted to have a snack with her husband...She stated that she took care of her husband for five years after he had a stroke. She knew what he needed," the surveyors from the state Health department wrote.
In mid-June the woman clashed again with staff when she complained that there was no need to close a privacy curtain when they tended to her husband.
The woman however, noted that she also had power of attorney over her husband.
Staff then "educated" the woman that there was a need for a privacy curtain.
Finally the nursing home's Interdiscipllinary Team ruled that she was "not capable of making sound decisions and she was threatening his (her husband's) health and safety."
The team "decided that Resident 49 (the wife) should not room with Resident 27 (the husband)."
That led to the June 29 confrontation and the wife barricading the door to their room when they tried to take him away.
The staff then waited till the woman was away from the room and spirited Resident 27 to another room. When she returned she began going from room to room trying to find him. The woman then began refusing to take her medications, meals or other care.
She eventually found her husband's room but was told she couldn't go in because there were other males in the room and when she later returned to see him at bedtime she was told to say good bye from the doorway. The husband cried out when she appeared.
According to the report the women's health began to deteriorate as soon as she was separated from her husband.
On July 2 she suffered chest pains and shortness of breath and was sent to the hospital. She returned to the nursing home on July 7 "oriented." Her mood improved, but she was still angry.
In late July she was described as critically ill and in mid-August she was short of breath, pale, fatigued and had swelling in both legs, but refused to be hospitalized.
She and her husband were reunited briefly but he was moved out on Sept. 23 and his wife became depressed and had to be hospitalized once again.
The report from the state Health Department did not mince words and concluded that the staff actions resulted in physical and mental decline and hospitalization of a resident.
"There was no documented evidence that the facility included Resident 49 in decision making for Resident 27 and honored her decision, as Resident 27's power of attorney not to move Resident 27," the report states.
The facility filed a plan of correction in which it promised to revise the operations of its Interdisciplinary Team and establish new procedures to identify residents in decline.
Officials of the Department of Military and Veterans did not respond to questions on the report including the current status of the couple.
The report was the result of an inspection to recertify the 257-bed facility in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Other deficiencies included failure to follow infection control procedures when nurses in the unit housing confirmed and suspected Covid 19 diagnoses failed to change protective gear while going to different patients' rooms.
In addition the surveyors found several errors in the administration of insulin to patients. The injections were not made according to the schedule set by physicians.
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