Care Wanting at PA Vets Home

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A Pennsylvania nursing home for veterans has been cited by state health officials for failing to take proper action in response to multiple residents suffering from severe rashes and scabies.
According to a recently released report from the state Health Department staffers at the 257-bed Hollidaysburg Veterans Center in Blair County failed to make proper assessments or monitor five of eight patients with widespread rashes and scabies, a contagious skin disease caused by mites.
One resident, according to the report, had a rash over the entire back and upper arms.
In addition the state surveyors reported that an employee who also came down with scabies was allowed to return to work before getting a release from a physician. The unnamed employee, a nurse's aide, had been diagnosed with scabies in late February and returned to work March 1 without the required physician's clearance.
On March 5, the same aide called out when the scabies apparently resurfaced.
She returned five days later, this time with a doctor's okay.
The state health inspectors concluded from a review of Hollidaysburg records that staffers failed on multiple occasions to complete required daily monitoring of the five patients suffering from rashes or scabies.
Facility officials filed a plan of correction with the Health Department in which they agreed to retrain staffers on the assessment and monitoring requirements. The agency response included the results of an assessment of the patients with the skin and rash problems and the subsequent treatment ordered by a physician.
Some of the residents, the plan of correction states, were subsequently diagnosed with allergic dermatitis rather than scabies.
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