The state suspends
9 people died in the nursing home after Hurricane Irma
the license of the nursing home where nine people died after Hurricane Irma.
Tallahassee — Escalating a legal and regulatory fight, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration issued an emergency suspension of the license of a Broward County nursing home Wednesday after the deaths of nine residents following Hurricane Irma.
The license suspension was another step after the state Agency for Health Care Administration last week placed a moratorium on admissions to The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills and suspended the facility from the Medicaid program.
The nursing home filed a lawsuit late Tuesday challenging the admissions moratorium and the Medicaid cutoff.
Eight of the residents died Sept. 13, three days after Hurricane Irma shut down the nursing home’s air-conditioning system. The license suspension alleged that four of the residents had body temperatures of at least 107 degrees when they arrived at a nearby hospital or when they died.
“Respondent (the nursing home) failed to maintain safe conditions in its facility; failed to timely evacuate its facility once conditions were no longer safe for residents; and failed to timely contact ‘911’ during a medical emergency,” said the emergency suspension order, signed by AHCA Secretary Justin Senior.
The Scott administration and the nursing home have been locked in a debate for the past week about whether the facility acted properly after Hurricane Irma knocked out a transformer for the air-conditioning system.
While eight residents died Sept. 13, the Hollywood Police Department said Tuesday that a ninth resident, Carlos Canal, 93, also had died. Other residents were evacuated from the 152-bed home Sept. 13.
While Wednesday’s emergency license suspension would prevent the nursing home from operating, the facility argued in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Leon County circuit court that the admissions moratorium and the suspension from the Medicaid program would have the same effect.
The lawsuit seeks injunc-