No one talking about raid at Darby facility
DARBY BOROUGH » Officials were tight-lipped Thursday about a raid reportedly executed Wednesday by agents from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and members of the Darby Police Department at the St. Francis Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare.
“I can neither confirm nor deny any investigation,” said Joe Grace, director of communications for the AG’s Office.
Darby Police Chief Robert Smythe did not return calls for comment and Pennsylvania Department of Health Acting Director of Communications April Hutcheson directed all questions to law enforcement officials.
“Law enforcement agencies visited the facility and the facility is cooperating with them,” a spokesperson for the facility’s owner, New York-based Center Management Group, said Thursday.
The DOH moved to revoke the regular nursing home license at St. Francis after an August inspection found a host of issues with resident care, including one man who developed wounds “down to the bone.”
A survey of the facility found employees failed to follow physician orders or notify physicians of changes in resident medical conditions in a timely manner for nine of 28 residents reviewed.
The report also found 11 of those 28 residents suffered some form of neglect; the facility failed to maintain acceptable nutrition parameters for three residents and sufficient fluid intake for two residents; and one resident saw “significant medication errors.”
DOH determined that the nursing home administrator and director of nursing failed to effectively oversee the operation of the facility and assure the health and safety of the residents, “causing an immediate jeopardy situation to resident health and safety.”
One woman reported Thursday that her 72-year-old mother was taken to the hospital Sept. 25 for septic shock with a bowel obstruction and urinary tract infection after the family repeatedly asked staff at the facility to replace a catheter.
“We told them over and over and over again that there was something wrong with my mom,” the woman said. “Her stomach was severely distended. She looked like she was pregnant.”
The woman said she received multiple calls from St. Francis about her mother’s progress Wednesday, but did not know if that was just a smokescreen for the attorney general’s actions there. After learning of the raid Wednesday night on television news, the woman said she contacted an administrator.
“She called me back and said this is just routine, it was just a result of them being investigated a couple months ago, nothing’s changed, this is nothing new,” she said. “I told her this has made national news. The only reason why I didn’t come up there last night was my father had just left there. The cops asked him a couple of questions.”
The woman said the administrator told her there would be a “town hall” meeting for resident families on the latest action taken by authorities, but no date has been set yet. She said she has been working to get her mother transferred to another facility but has been hitting a wall due to her medical status and a lack of concrete answers coming from St. Francis staff.
Emily Harris, a spokeswoman for Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan, also confirmed Thursday that the D.A.’s Special Investigation Unit is looking into allegations of voter fraud at the facility, but said Wednesday’s raid is not related to that investigation.
The revocation order was entered Sept. 1, but has been stayed under an appeal for 90 days while the facility works to meet the terms
of a plan of correction. After that, Hutcheson said, the facility could go to a provisional license.
“They are still under supervision, but are being allowed to correct the issues before the revocation would go into full effect,” Hutcheson said last month. “At any time within that period, if there is a situation that arises and the Department needs to take further action, we can do that.”
St. Francis was one of a handful of properties the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sold to CMG in 2014 to help defray operating costs. Vincenzo Manzella, CMG’s regional administrator for St. Francis, previously said the company had taken steps to correct the findings in the survey by hiring entirely new management and supervisory teams, as well as a new administrator, dietary and wound care experts and a new director of nursing. The facility is also providing a rigorous retraining process for staff, he said.
The 273-bed facility remains under temporary management by a DOH contractor and Hutcheson said the department is monitoring the facility “extremely closely” to ensure it complies with the correction plan.