Nursing Home Closing

A southern Illinois nursing home will surrender its license and close its doors after the state says the home failed to comply with safety regulations.

The Orchard Court Nursing Home in Jonesboro houses 15 residents.
The facility will surrender its license and close within 90 days.
Orchard Court has also agreed to pay a $12,000 fine.
The settlement was reached Monday.

In a document more than 50 pages long, the Department of Public Health gives numerous examples of the facility failing to protect residents from violent attacks.

"When you see a pattern of behavior, when you see these continued abuse or neglect type situations we look at that pattern and if we find they are not able to comply with the statute we then move towards license revocation," says Melaney Arnold with IDPH.

Most of the incidents stem from an 18 year old resident with profound mental retardation.
Numerous times he injured and even hospitalized other residents.
One report describes the beating of a 62 year old blind resident who was treated for lacerations to his head.

Officials say this is abuse.
Each long term care facility is responsible to develop an appropriate care plan for each resident.

"Whether that be means they need to be in a single room, whether that be means they need one-on-one supervision," says Arnold.

IDPH says the facility had been in trouble for some time. Orchard Court was already operating under a type A license, which means during inspection they were found to have some of the most serious violations.

"License revocation is not very common and for this to happen we definitely felt there were issues with continued care and operation with this facility," says Arnold.

In fact, Orchard Court is only one of seven long term care facilities up for license revocation in the state.
The facility could have appealed the citation but surrendered that right. In a statement they said money is the issue.

"Orchard Court is operated by a small not for profit company that cannot afford a protracted legal fight with the government" they say.

The facility also admits no wrongdoing and disagrees with the state's actions.

The residents will soon be moved to other nursing homes.

Orchard Court says they were trying to care for the more severely disabled residents who have been turned away from other state-run facilities.
They say a lack of adequate funding was also an issue.
They claim the state still owes them 6 months worth of pay.



WSIL TV • Nursing Home Closing