On September 28, 2016, the Department of Public Health (DPH) gave
unconditional written approval to Rockport Healthcare Services to
implement its revised closure and relocation plans for Seaview, Pacific
and Eureka Rehabilitation & Wellness Centers in Eureka. These three
nursing homes contain nearly 60 percent of the nursing home beds in
Humboldt County and house about 190 residents. Rockport Healthcare
Services is affiliated with Brius Healthcare Services, a nursing home
business operated by Shlomo Rechnitz.
On the same date, DPH wrote Joe Rodrigues, the State Long-Term Care
Ombudsman, and Suzi Fregeau, the local ombudsman coordinator, to advise
them it found no basis to impose receivership on the facilities as they
had recommended.
Condemnation by public officials was swift.
Senator Mike McGuire issued a statement to the North Coast Journal expressing extreme disappointment and called the closure plans “devastating” and “completely irresponsible.”
Local ombudsman Suzi Fregeau called the Department’s decisions “catastrophic.”
Contradicting the operator’s claims that it could not give away the facilities,
the Eureka Times-Standard reported
that the Partnership Health Plan of California had offered to buy and
run one or more of the facilities from Rockport but that the asking
price was “untenable.”
The Lost Coast Outpost posted a statement from Assemblymember Jim Wood
stating “Rockport remained steadfast in walking away from more than 200
vulnerable residents and their families” and describing the demand for
an “unreasonably high” price as “unconscionable.”
These statements quickly triggered a very public exchange of
criticism between Brius Healthcare Services and the Partnership Health
Plan about who was to blame and subsequent media stories by the
Lost Coast Outpost and
Eureka Times-Standard on September 30, 2016.
The disgraceful actions by DPH continues its long history of aiding
the interests of nursing home operators at the expense of the nursing
home residents it is supposed to protect, even when residents’ lives are
at stake. In authorizing the Eureka nursing homes to close and evict
all of the residents, DPH is virtually condemning most of them to
isolated lives far apart from their families and friends and to the
likely trauma that often accompany this fate.
Most of the residents are likely to be moved to nursing homes outside
of Humboldt County if the facilities close because there are few
available beds in the remaining two local nursing homes. The approved
closure plans identifies nursing homes within a 200-mile radius beyond
the greater Eureka area, including 24 nursing homes that reportedly have
available beds. These 24 nursing homes have the following
characteristics:
- All but one of them are more than 100 miles from Eureka;
- Some of them are nearly 200 miles from Eureka;
- Five of them are in Oregon;
- The remaining 19 facilities are spread across 10 different
northern California counties including Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn,
Lake, Mendocino, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sonoma and Tehama Counties;
- The 24 nursing homes had a total of 214 vacancies;
- Many of the nursing homes have deplorable records; and
- 15 of the 24 nursing homes – containing 138 of the 214 available
beds – currently have 1 or 2-Star ratings on Nursing Home Compare’s Five
Star quality rating system. (Click to Continue)
Full Article & Source:
Department of Public Health Approves Mass Evictions of Eureka Nursing Home Residents
