Patients at State Veterans Home Assaulted

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Four patients at a state run nursing home for veterans were assaulted verbally or physically when officials of the Scranton facility failed to take action to restrain an assaultive fellow patient.
The incidents at the Gino Merli Veterans Center were detailed in a recent report from the state Health Department which noted that the attacks resulted in actual physical injury including a fractured finger and lacerations and contusions.
In one of the attacks the attacking patient punched another patient who was seated in his wheelchair, knocking him to the floor.
The patient was found lying on the floor, bleeding from a lip laceration and suffering from elbow lacerations.
The patient was later found to have a fractured pinky and required stitches for the mouth wounds.
Questioned about the attack, the victim said, "I was punched in the face by a man with white hair. My wheel chair fell over with me in it."
Surveyors from the health agency reviewed video tapes which confirmed the unprovoked attack.
Yet another victim was punched with a closed fist, the report states. Video of the incident showed the victim was punched five times.
The aggressor was sent to another facility for an evaluation, but was returned to the nursing home before the end of the day.
The final victim was subjected to expletive laced verbal abuse.
"The facility failed to ensure that four patients were free from physical and/or verbal abuse," according to the Dec. 3 report.
The nursing home's managers were also faulted for barring patients from having any visitors even after federal officials lifted a visitors' ban.
The facility filed a plan of correction in which officials said the assaultive patient was kept away from his victims. They also said the visitors ban was lifted.
Officials of the state agency which runs the veterans homes did not respond to questions about the report.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com

Meaness, Elopements Cited at Montgomery Facility

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

"There's a lot of meanness here," a patient at a Montgomery County nursing home told a surveyor from the Pennsylvania Health Department during a recent visit.
That encounter plus evidence of multiple violations of state requirements were detailed in a Nov. 10 report on the Meadow View Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Lafayette Hill just feet away from the Philadelphia city line.
The inspectors found that the facility failed to properly investigate an incidents in which two disabled patients were able to walk out the door apparently unnoticed.
The patient who reported the "meanness," told the state employees he was barked at when he asked permission to leave his unit. He was advised not to ask again.
The surveyors found and observed several violations of infection control requirements in wards set up to treat patients who had contracted Covid-19 or had been in contact with someone who had the virus.
Employees were observed serving meals in the Covid-19 area without masks or protective equipment. Others were observed without the proper masks.
Employees told the inspectors that at one point in the midst of the pandemic there were no masks or protective gear available.
In other findings the records for a diabetic patient showed the physican overseeing care was not informed when blood/sugar levels skyrocketed.
In addition the facility had failed to set any goals or interventions for the patient.
"The patient complained his blood/sugar levels were not checked as required before an insulin injection," the report states.
Finally the report states that three smoking patients were not properly monitored and one patient's records were inaccurate.
Facilty officials did not respond to questions about the report. They did file a plan of correction with the state health agency. Under the plan officals of the 244-bed facility said housekeeping issues had been resolved and the nurse who yelled at a patient was instructed on the proper way to address a patient. The plan noted that the two patients who eloped were uninjured. Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com