Sunday, June 05, 2011

Duluth nursing home cited

Bayshore Health Center in Duluth has been cited by the Minnesota Department of Health for failing to report multiple patient altercations and problems — including a patient with frostbitten feet and another who used his power wheelchair to ram other patients.
The report, posted May 27, stems from a state inspection March 21 and 22 that found two serious violations of federal nursing home rules, including “a situation in which the provider’s noncompliance with one or more requirements of participation has caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment, or death to a resident.
John Stieger, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Health, said a May 20 reinspection by the state found Bayshore “corrected most of the deficiencies,” including the most serious.

The state has recommended a $4,050 one-time fine, and a $200 daily fine that is still accumulating, to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has not yet rendered a decision, Stieger said.
In one Bayshore case in the report, a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic patient who was allowed to smoke but who couldn’t light his or her own cigarette was allowed to go outside without proper footwear and suffered frostbite on both feet. The incident was not reported.
Duluth nursing home cited by state inspectors Duluth News Tribune Duluth, Minnesota