Nobody from nursing home called for help as dozens of seniors suffered in triple-digit temperatures

Nearly 200 residents and staff were evacuated from the Voorhees Care and Rehabilitation Center on Sunday, when its air conditioning system failed.

By Blake Nelson and Ted Sherman

They didn’t dial 911 after the air conditioning failed and temperatures began climbing dangerously high inside a building filled with people in poor health.

Nobody notified the state Department of Health.

It wasn’t until a visitor finally reported the problem to police, said authorities, that dozens of first responders began arriving to help evacuate more than 100 residents from the Voorhees Care and Rehabilitation Center in Camden County on a steamy Sunday afternoon.

A day after an emergency that saw some patients moved out of their rooms and taken by ambulance to nearby nursing homes that could accommodate them — while others were simply pushed across the street in wheelchairs to a high school serving as temporary refuge — the situation at the nursing home on Laurel Oak Road in Voorhees was returning to normal.

But questions remain.

“The department continues to gather information about the incident,” said a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health, who added that the facility has been “repopulated.”

Nursing home officials, meanwhile, declined to say why they did not alert anyone to the crisis, or what went wrong with their air conditioning system. Inside, though there were portable air conditioner units in clear view and a worker said many of the lights in the building were off to try to keep the place cool.

The nursing home is rated at the bottom for its quality of care, ranked “much below average,” according to the most recent report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That report in April 2018 concluded the facility had failed to maintain a clean and sanitary environment that was in good repair.

Voorhees Capt. Carmen Del Palazzo said his department did not get a call from the nursing home, and first learned there was a problem at about 11:15 a.m. on Sunday from a visitor as the heat wave that had gripped the state for days sent temperatures outside to triple digits. More than four hours later, he said about 100 residents and 20 staff were being walked, wheeled and bused to Eastern Regional High School across the street and placed in a cafeteria. Others were taken away by ambulance.

Jim Arpino, a captain with the Voorhees Fire Department, said about 75 police officers, firefighters and emergency workers from Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties worked in shifts during the evacuation.

One resident was taken from the cafeteria to a hospital because of a medical emergency, Arpino said, and another on hospice died in the nursing home, but he said neither situation was heat-related, and that the death occurred in a room where the air conditioning was working.

The nursing center sits on a quiet, tree-lined street, next to a facility for disabled children and not far from a bustling mall.

The evacuees for the most part were hosted for about four hours at the adjacent high school. Harold Melleby, Jr., superintendent of the Eastern Camden County Regional School District, said the cafeteria was well-cooled and near bathrooms, and he said the school had plenty of space to house even more people.

Melleby was not sure if the school had a formal agreement with the nursing home to house residents, but said he and the staff who showed up Sunday were happy to help.

“We wanted to be a good neighbor,” he said.

According to state health officials, the department was never notified by the facility about the deteriorating conditions, and was not involved in the evacuation.

Nursing home facilities in New Jersey are required to establish a written heat emergency action plan which mandates the procedures to be followed if the indoor air temperature is 82 degrees or higher for a continuous period of four hours or longer, officials said.

Part of those procedures include the notification of the department, they noted.

It is not known how hot the temperatures got inside on Sunday.

Palazzo believed one of the facility’s three rooftop compressors had failed. The police spokesman could recall at least one other problem with the facility’s air conditioning in the past, but he said that had not prompted an evacuation.

On Monday, the nursing home — a five-story brick building surrounded by lush trees and well-manicured lawns — was quiet. An employee watered plants in the back while workers trickled in and out of the front entrance, walking over white tile and past upholstered furniture that appeared older, but clean.

Officials at Voorhees Care and Rehabilitation would not respond to questions. A woman at the nursing home’s front desk said the facility’s administrator, Bentzion Friedman, had no comment. Another later asked a reporter to leave.

Inside the facility’s lobby, though, it still felt muggy in the early afternoon. A portable air conditioning unit sat on the floor near the entrance, an exhaust tube snaking into the ceiling.

Full Article & Source:
Nobody from nursing home called for help as dozens of seniors suffered in triple-digit temperatures