Turning nursing homes around won’t be easy

We need to re-imagine options for long-term living

A sign outside Cambridge Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Cambridge. (Photo by Shira Schoenberg)

by Richard T Moore

THE HIGH RATES of COVID-19 infections and deaths among residents of skilled nursing facilities, nursing homes, and rest homes in Massachusetts and the nation laid bare the urgent need for significant improvements in infection prevention.  If, after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, there is even a market for nursing home beds, lawmakers and state regulators need to overhaul the standards for licensure and inspection of such facilities.

According to the American Association of Retired People, “more than 16,000 nursing home residents and staff have died from COVID-19, representing roughly a quarter of the nation’s known coronavirus deaths. While dire, this figure is an undercount, experts warn, because not all states are publicly reporting data yet. In some states, more than half of coronavirus deaths have come in nursing homes.”

In Massachusetts, 62 percent of coronavirus deaths have come in nursing homes.

Reimbursements to long-term care providers were inadequate even before COVID-19.  Even the most dedicated workers are unlikely to invest time and energy in infection prevention if they are not able to earn a living wage, if testing is insufficient, and if workers are not provided with essential PPE – masks, gowns, gloves, face shields, etc.

This funding issue must be addressed if we are to be prepared for whatever comes next.  However, given the growing number of for-profit and out-of-state owners of nursing homes, any distribution of public funds must have requirements to direct at least 85 percent of revenues to front-line direct care and maintenance staff and prohibitions on use of any such funds to senior management or investors.

In my years as a health care legislator, I never met a senior citizen who wanted to go to a nursing home.  With the trail of death flowing from nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, will any senior, or their family, willingly choose this future for themselves or their loved one?

Compare the rate of COVID-19-related nursing home deaths in the United States to the rate in Hong Kong – a much shorter distance to the suspected source of the pandemic than Boston or Worcester.

According to an article in The Guardian, Hong Kong has recorded zero deaths in care homes from COVID-19 by employing strict infection control measures that were ignored in the United Kingd0m, where the death toll in English and Welsh care homes reached almost 15,000.

Massachusetts, and probably most other states, need to re-imagine the options available for long-term living and the best use of taxpayer funding to benefit nursing home-eligible residents and for attracting the most caring, competent staff.

The Department of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School needs to be directed and funded sufficiently to make caring for seniors more attractive for new professionals.  UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute and Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging should be funded sufficiently to support a comprehensive study of aging in Massachusetts.  Finally, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services needs to prioritize infection prevention in long-term care, including hiring enough trained inspectors to enforce the most rigorous regulatory environment regarding infection prevention.

There are powerful financial and political interests who will resist these changes, but we owe it to the many precious seniors who died, and certainly to those who remain, to fix the system of long-term care.

Richard T. Moore is a former member of the Massachusetts Senate, and served as the first Senate chair of the Legislature’s Committee on Health Care Financing.  He was the lead Senate negotiator for the landmark Massachusetts Health Care Reform Law 2006 and the Health Care Cost Containment Law of 2012.

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Turning nursing homes around won’t be easy

3 Michigan nursing homes report more than 100 coronavirus cases. See newly released data

New answers about which nursing homes have been most severely impacted by COVID-19 came Friday when Michigan officials released cumulative case data on facilities that house the state’s most vulnerable population.

But the accuracy of some of the numbers has been called into question by previous Free Press reporting. After the state's release, some said they don't trust the counts. 

The data released Friday shows nursing homes statewide have had about 5,000 coronavirus cases among residents with about 90% of the facilities reporting. Three homes in metro Detroit have had more than 100 cases and another five reported more than 80 cases, according to the state's data.

Friday was the first time since the start of the pandemic that the state has provided cumulative coronavirus cases broken down by nursing home. No death data was provided online Friday, but officials previously said more than 1,200 nursing homes residents have died.

According to the state's data, nursing homes reporting the highest total number of cases among residents include:

• Westland Convalescent & Rehab Center (Westland, a Villa Center) in Westland with 127 cases.
• Autumn Woods Residential Health in Warren with 111 cases.
• Fairlane Senior Care and Rehab Center in Detroit with 101 cases.

The Free Press left messages Friday with the facilities that had the highest number of cumulative cases and did not hear back from two of them.  (Click to continue)

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3 Michigan nursing homes report more than 100 coronavirus cases. See newly released data

Man pleads guilty to financial elder abuse

HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — A Decaturville man plead guilty to financial elder abuse on Tuesday.

A news release from the Decatur County Circuit Court says Robert McCoy, 49, plead guilty on two counts of financial exploitation of elder adults.

The release says McCoy was arrested after a traffic stop led to the discovery of a large amount of credit, ID, and bank cards, bank checks and other documents.

Additional items were later found at McCoy’s home during an investigation, and surveillance video from local businesses showed him using the stolen identities, according to the release.

McCoy was indicted with 54 counts, including identity theft, criminal simulation, theft, forgery and financial exploitation of elders.

Due to recent updates in Tennessee law, abuses to elderly and vulnerable adults are now classified as higher-level felonies.

The total amount have charges resulted in B Class felony charges for McCoy.

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Man pleads guilty to financial elder abuse

What’s Behind the Nursing Home Horror

After decades of mistreatment, older Americans are bearing the worst of the pandemic.

By Charles C. Camosy
Dr. Camosy teaches bioethics and moral theology at Fordham University.

Emergency medical technicians transporting a patient from a nursing home to an emergency room bed at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers, N.Y., on April 20th.Credit...John Minchillo/Associated Press

We knew it from the beginning. A nursing home in Washington State was the center of the first known coronavirus outbreak in the United States. We knew that institutions caring for the elderly and disabled in close quarters would be particularly vulnerable during the pandemic.

But we did not act. Personal protective equipment, special training and extra staff went almost exclusively to our critical care facilities. Nursing homes got virtually nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. In New York and other places we gave them patients, and even nurses, infected with the virus.

The result has been a raging wildfire of infection and death. We don’t have full reporting of anywhere close to all the deaths at this point, but the best estimates right now are that about half of those who have died from Covid-19 have been nursing home residents. In some places, it’s much more: Connecticut reported that nearly 90 percent of its Covid-related deaths between April 22 and April 29 occurred in nursing homes.

We tend to see this as a public health failure, but it is also a moral failure. That fact hit me recently, after I went on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to talk about the plight of nursing homes.

Even before the pandemic, these were places where what I call “throwaway culture” was thriving. The staff aren’t paid a living wage, often have poor training and are hopelessly overworked. The residents face elder abuse, and large percentages of them are desperately lonely. A good number get no visitors at all, which pushes rates of dementia among residents to unbelievable levels.

I suggested to Mr. Carlson’s audience that it was no surprise that throwaway culture kicked into hyperdrive in nursing homes during our current moment. I was excited to be able to make my case to a national audience; afterward, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was help my wife get our 2-year-old to bed and go to sleep myself.

But that’s when the messages started coming in. Email. Facebook messenger. LinkedIn. Twitter. One after the other after the other. And they were horrifying.

It is one thing for a professor of bioethics to cite abstract numbers and trends and offer a theoretical explanation for them. It is another thing to get message after message detailing the human toll of what you had just discussed.

One of the most moving — and frightening — was from a nursing home staffer. She said she was given inadequate P.P.E. and training, and had likely been exposed to the virus. Her communications with management were ignored. Staff members at her facility were not being tested. She decided to quit her job rather than risk infecting her residents. “I don’t know if you can help me,” she said. “I feel that what you said is true; the elderly need a voice by someone that cares.”

Another correspondent, who had worked in health care administration, said that she was “not surprised in the least that the hospitals were trying to discharge their Covid-19 infected patients” back to long-term-care facilities because, in her experience, this has “been happening for quite some time.” It got worse: Agreeing with me about the radical understaffing of nursing homes, she said that it is “increasingly common is to discharge high cost and difficult patients to homeless shelters … Yep, you heard me right … HOMELESS SHELTERS.”

Not every story was coronavirus-specific. One man told me the story of the fatal neglect of his father — after which the nursing home falsified his father’s records and hid behind state laws that nursing home lobbyists had written.

A former director of nursing at a long-term-care facility said that given her terrible professional experiences, she had refused to put her 78-year-old husband, who was suffering from dementia, anywhere outside her own home. Another clearly frightened woman explained that she had just had a horrible experience with her mother in a nursing home; she even gave me, a complete stranger, her phone number, in the desperate hope that I could raise the alarm about how bad things were.

We need to listen to people like this and act on what they are saying. The pandemic doesn’t have many silver linings, but as the number of nursing-home deaths piles up, the news media is being forced to cover a world many of us would prefer to ignore.

It is understandable that we would. Part of the price we pay for living in a death-denying, consumerist, throwaway culture is that we must push these kinds of grim realities to unseen places that afford us plausible deniability. The pandemic forces us to look. If we want to understand the current phase of the coronavirus pandemic, we can no longer look away.

After receiving this waterfall of messages, I expected to fall into despair. But while I do have my bad days, I also have hope. Times like this have produced major cultural changes in our past. If we do take a hard look, we may change more than just the way we treat older Americans. We may, along the way, find a way to push against throwaway culture in all its forms.

Instead of denying the reality of cognitive impairment, aging and death, could our culture begin to embrace it forthrightly in ways which lead us to honor the final years we have with the family members and friends who go before us? To honor the moral and social equality of every human being, regardless of their mental or physical status?

Why not? Many of us are staying home and practicing physical distancing, not primarily for ourselves but for the benefit of our elders and others who find themselves at risk. Let us build on that good and decent impulse by challenging a throwaway culture that, right up until this very moment, has marginalized these populations and made the nursing-home crisis a tragic inevitability.

Charles C. Camosy (@ccamosy) is an associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University. His most recent book is “Resisting Throwaway Culture.”

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What’s Behind the Nursing Home Horror

Senator’s petition calls on nursing homes to allow cameras in rooms

by Whitney Bryan

Michigan Senator Jim Runestad (R-White Lake) has started a petition calling for nursing homes to allow residents to install cameras in their rooms.

By signing the Nursing Home Cameras Petition, Runestad said residents would call on nursing homes, members of the Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to support Senate Bill 77.

According to Runestad’s, SB 77 is a measure that would establish that a resident of a nursing home facility or their representative would be permitted to monitor their private room using an electronic monitoring device under certain conditions.

“Cameras can act as a deterrent to some of the most heinous behavior taking place, and they can give peace of mind to family members worried about the care of their loved ones,” Runestad said. “If an episode of abuse does happen and is caught on tape, legal video evidence can be used to bring justice to the abusers.”

Runestad said his petition was sparked by a video recently made public of a 20-year-old Detroit nursing home resident beating his 75-year-old roommate on Friday, May 15.

“It shouldn’t take a viral video of abuse or a global pandemic to convince our leaders that we ought to be protecting our seniors,” Runestad said. “It’s long past time we do something to protect nursing home residents from abuse.”

Under SB 77, Runestad said residents and their families would pay for and oversee the cameras. If a resident’s living space is a shared one, all roommates would have to consent to have a camera. Signs would have to be posted in the facility and the room itself to make it very clear that a camera is present. Additional provisions would allow the curtaining of cameras for medical procedures and other sensitive times to protect privacy.

“I urge everyone to sign this petition to let leaders in Michigan know that residents should be allowed to install a camera in their nursing home if they wish,” Runestad said. “Make your voice heard now!

To sign the petition, click here.

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Senator’s petition calls on nursing homes to allow cameras in rooms

Ukiah live-in care worker arrested on suspicion of elder abuse

by Chantelle Lee

An in-home care worker was arrested in Ukiah this week after allegedly pushing his 73-year-old client, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said.

Terry Omler, 49, of Ukiah, was booked into Mendocino County Jail on Tuesday on the felony charge of elder abuse resulting in bodily injury, the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. His bail was set at $25,000.

Sheriff’s deputies were notified of the incident at 11:19 p.m. Tuesday. They responded to a residence in the 800 block of Lake Mendocino Drive. When they arrived, deputies spoke with the 73-year-old man, who said he had been assaulted by his live-in supportive services care worker, Omler.

The victim told deputies he and Omler had gotten into an argument. During the argument, Omler allegedly pushed the victim, causing him to lose his balance and fall onto the kitchen floor. The man attempted to brace his fall with his hands, but when he hit the ground he suffered immediate, severe pain in his right wrist and hand. Authorities said Omler left the victim lying on the ground, went to his room and fell asleep. Deputies found Omler sleeping in his bedroom, apparently heavily intoxicated from the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the Sheriff’s Office said in the statement.

The victim, who can’t walk well without assistance, was unable to stand up and it took him about an hour to crawl on the floor into the living room to get his phone and call law enforcement, according to the statement.

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Ukiah live-in care worker arrested on suspicion of elder abuse

US nursing homes seek legal immunity as Covid-19 spreads ‘like brushfire’

Family members of residents at the Life Care Center home, in Kirkland, Washington, where some patients have died from Covid-19, at a press conference on 5 March. Photograph: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

The US nursing home industry is clamoring for legal immunity during the coronavirus pandemic, even as horror stories from hard-hit facilities enrage families, consumer advocates and the American public.

Healthcare organizations insist liability protections are essential for under-resourced nursing homes fighting against Covid-19, while an already staggering death toll continues to climb.

Tricia Neuman, senior vice-president of the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, said: “The liability issue is exposing a longstanding tension between consumer advocates, who want to see the standards enforced, and owners, who are worried about the financial implications of a lawsuit.”

The US “ground zero” for the virus was a nursing home outside of Seattle. Once the country became a global hotspot, elderly Americans suffered. In some states, nursing homes have accounted for a majority of Covid-19 deaths as facilities scrambled to adapt.

Critics say the virus has ravaged nursing homes “like a brushfire”, partly because of the industry’s disastrous track record with infection control, but also because of staffing and resource deficiencies that long predate Covid-19.

Toby Edelman, a senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, said: “It’s a population at risk, but this industry has a lot of serious problems that led to these enormous outbreaks in nursing homes. So I don’t think they can just say: ‘It’s not our fault, we didn’t have equipment.’

“They were supposed to have that equipment. This isn’t new.”

Some nursing homes have also faced criticism for their responses to Covid-19 that have only fanned the outbreaks’ flames.

Mike Dark, a staff attorney at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said: “Facilities mostly don’t want to flag that they have the virus even when it’s killing residents, because it’s such a publicity problem, it’s such a business problem, and they are for-profit enterprises.”

Cheyenne Pipkin (left) with her mother Loraine Franks visits her grandfather Jerry Hogan, a Vietnam veteran, at Lindsey Gardens in California. Photograph: Barcroft Media/via Getty Images

Nearly 70% of US nursing homes are for-profit, and the industry has a reputation for lackluster performance around infection control. In all longterm care facilities, which include nursing homes, somewhere between 1m and 3m serious infections are contracted annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hundreds of thousands of people die from infections each year, even when not in the grip of a pandemic.

“Our members are working hard to do the right thing and are focused on their missions of providing care. They are on the front lines of fighting coronavirus and are full partners with hospitals and other providers,” Katie Smith Sloan, the president and CEO of LeadingAge, an association for nonprofits providing services to older people, said.

“Regulations about standards of care evolve and change rapidly; providers’ access to needed personal protective equipment and testing is limited and often insufficient.”

State officials have been quick to let nursing homes off the hook for decisions made in the midst of the public health emergency. Through a hodgepodge of laws and executive orders, at least 21 states have granted some form of civil immunity to healthcare providers, according to a tally sent to the Guardian by National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care – though in a few cases it is not clear if the immunity extends to nursing homes.

Smith Sloan wrote: “States recognize that providers require legal protection as a result of actions related to combating the Covid-19 pandemic. LeadingAge … is pursuing protections on the federal level with a coalition asking for uniform and consistent relief as well.”

Some states are including immunity from criminal liability, but policies do generally make exceptions for especially egregious treatment, including willful misconduct or gross negligence.

Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, said: “To basically take away the one area of potential accountability when residents are most vulnerable to me is dumbfounding and dangerous.”

For some public health experts, however, the issue is not so cut and dried. They describe nursing homes as a sector in chronic need of reform that is nevertheless “the safety net of the safety net” for vulnerable people.

Experts acknowledge that the industry is filled with deficiencies, and is based upon a broken business model that struggles in the face of a pandemic. But they also say nursing homes have been under-prioritized by officials in a public health crisis that has disproportionately targeted their patient populations.

Michael L Barnett, a professor at the Harvard school of public health, said: “Putting a nursing home out of business because somebody died is really punishing at the wrong level, because certainly there are nursing homes that probably did not act responsibly, or they may have ignored the threat. But so did many government agencies.”

Instead of lawsuits, experts are advocating for immediate reinforcements in testing, personal protective equipment (PPE) and staff, followed by permanent fixes for longterm care. They suggest payment reform, so nursing homes are not dependent on fickle revenue streams to subsidize their Medicaid patients.

Mildred Solomon, president of the Hastings Center, warned against the “blitzkrieg of lawsuits” that these immunity measures mean to avoid.

She said: “I think we have to hold our fire, not put our energy into finger-wagging and blaming. And put more emphasis on stronger regulations, with teeth.”

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US nursing homes seek legal immunity as Covid-19 spreads ‘like brushfire’

Utah man sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for defrauding elderly Utah woman of nearly $300k

Frank Gene Powell

by: Jennifer Gardiner

ST. GEORGE, Utah (ABC4 News) – A convicted murderer on parole who bilked an 80-year-old St. George woman out of nearly $300,000 will spend a minimum of 10 years behind bars.

Frank Gene Powell, 51, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, two counts of destruction of records in a federal investigation, concealment of a document or object in an attempt to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding, and tampering with a witness.

Powell was sentenced Thursday morning in St. George in front of U.S. District Judge David Nuffer to 10 years in federal prison and to pay $273,849.20 in restitution. Additionally, Powell will also forfeit two vehicles and be on supervised release for three years following his release from federal prison.

At the time of the crimes, Powell had only been on parole since 2017 after spending 30-years behind bars for the 1987 murder of 20-year-old Glen Candland who Powell ran over with his truck after an argument at a party. While incarcerated, Powell was convicted of sexually assaulting an inmate.

Frank Powell admitted he conspired with several others, including his girlfriend, Faye Renteria, 42, of Hurricane, to come up with a plan to steal money from the woman. He also admitted he engaged in a fake romantic relationship with the victim as a part of this plan.

Powell also pleaded guilty to witness tampering after he attempted to stop the victim from communicating with law enforcement officers investigating the case.

“Powell is a career criminal who has fended off decades of rehabilitative attempts in the Utah state criminal justice system. He’s a convicted murderer and sexual predator, who has now turned his criminal efforts to elder fraud while on state parole,” U.S. Attorney for Utah John W. Huber said today. “With these guilty pleas, he stands convicted of unconscionable crimes against a senior member of the St. George community. A 10-year sentence is very appropriate in this case and will help ensure that Utah will not fall victim to his crimes again.”

Eight defendants in all were charged in a 10-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in January.

“This crime is especially heinous because Frank Powell not only deceived and defrauded the victim, he made it a family affair,” said Special Agent in Charge Paul Haertel of the Salt Lake City FBI. “As a society, we should be looking out for the elderly, not exploiting them. Crimes like this will be aggressively investigated, and we encourage the public to immediately report any fraud to law enforcement or the FBI.”

Frank Powell’s mother Gloria Jean Powell, 74, of St. George, was sentenced to time served on May 1, after pleading guilty to one count of concealment of a document or object, admitting she tried to hide the stolen money and she helped her son and her daughter, Angela McDuffie, 53, of Lehi, in the scheme.

Renteria, who is in custody, will be sentenced on July 15 after pleading guilty on May 7. She admitted she engaged in misleading the victim and attempted to stop her from communicating with law enforcement.

She faces up to 20 years for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 10 years for each count of money laundering, 20 years for each count of destruction of records or tangible objects in a federal investigation, and up to 10 years for the witness tampering conviction.

Bubby Mern Shepherd, 58, of Lodi, California, and Rocky James Powell Mott, 40, of Hurricane, both of whom are still in custody, both pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Their plea deal include a stipulated sentence of 21 months in prison.

Cases are pending against McDuffie, Terrence Quincy Powell, 24, of St. George, and Martell Taz Powell, 25, of Cedar City. Trial in those cases are scheduled for September.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah said combating elder abuse and financial fraud targeted at seniors is a key priority.

A statement issued in a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice reads:

“Elder abuse is a serious crime against some of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens, affecting at least 10 percent of older Americans every year. Together with federal, state, local and tribal partners, the Department of Justice is committed to combating all forms of elder abuse and financial exploitation through enforcement actions, training and resources, research, victim services, and public awareness. This holistic and robust response demonstrates the Department’s unwavering dedication to fighting for justice for older Americans.”

For tips on how to prevent Elder Financial Abuse, the Department of Justice has created a prevention awareness campaign with valuable information.

You can view that document: Stopping-Elder-Financial-Abuse

Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Utah are prosecuting the case. The FBI is investigating the case. Agents with Utah Adult Probation and Parole have made signification contributions to the investigation.

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Utah man sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for defrauding elderly Utah woman of nearly $300k

Mobile DA: Group home elder abuse victim tests positive for COVID-19

The Mobile County Sheriff's Office says the scribbled out portions of this photo marks out where a person is in the bed and another is in the chair.

by Toi Thornton

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) -- The Mobile County district attorney tells FOX10 News one of the victims in a group home elder abuse case has tested positive for COVID-19 and others suffer from pneumonia.

“These individuals are all being treated in the hopsital now for various illnesses including pneumonia and COVID. They needed treatment at the facility and were not given that treatment,” said District Attorney Ashley Rich.

While DA Rich maintained the home is not a boarding house, one of the suspects' attorney Dennis Knizley said it is.

“This is a boarding house. This is not a group home. This is not a nursing home,” Knizley said. “Like any other boarding house they provide 3 meals a day and some minimal cleaning. That’s what they do. They’re not the caretakers of these people.”

Deputies with Mobile County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday the elderly veterans had no access to food and water, the a/c was broken, the fire alarm wasn't functioning and the refrigerator and cabinets were padlocked.

“I was there at the scene when it unfolded and it was deplorable. It was horrific conditions. It’s the worst possible thing that I could imagine that we could do to a veteran as a society. These individuals are going to be held accountable for what they did,” DA Rich added.

Knizley argues these allegations are overblown.

“You’ve seen these pictures of locked up refrigerators and things like that, that’s only after 5 o’clock. All during the day they have ample access to food and meals. After 5 o’clock they have snacks in their room, they have water and that’s like any other place,” he explained. “Air conditioning units in ever room, working. The smoke detectors were taken off the wall they’re fine. Where these allegations come from, you heard one that there wasn’t no one there for a week. This is totally untrue.

Deputies also found a large amount of prescription medication at the Owens' home. Knizley said they were 2 or 3 years old.

"Some of the people  that are living there, they take their medication, they don’t take it all or they get and change their prescription. They have left over medication. Those left over medications, you don’t want to leave them around the place for someone to pick up and use. They take them from the boarding home to their own home and don’t just leave them out for someone else to use. Yes they could’ve discarded them,” Knizley explained.

After authorities discovered the conditions at the group home in Grand Bay earlier this week, they made two arrests.

Donny Owens, 49, owner of One Life Management, was arrested and charged with one count of first-degree elderly abuse and neglect and five counts of elderly abuse and second-degree neglect.

Tilena Kim Owens, 49, also was charged with several counts of elder abuse and neglect.

Both have been released on bond, according to Mobile County Metro Jail records.

“This is a very, very large investigation and we have multiple disciplinarian chains from all over the state and country that are looking at this because it is veterans,” Rich stated.

The Mobile County Sheriff's Office describes the facility involved as an unlicensed group home for elderly veterans.

It was Tuesday evening, deputies said, when one of the six elderly veterans living in the home left to get help for two others who had fallen.

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Mobile DA: Group home elder abuse victim tests positive for COVID-19

See Also:
Second person charged with elder abuse, neglect over Grand Bay group home

Man charged with multiple counts of elder abuse and neglect in Grand Bay