One of Kansas City’s lowest-rated nursing homes has cleanliness issues primarily based on current pictures taken via a former employee and a September inspection document.
Emily Brueggeman, a certified practical nurse from Lenexa, said she took pics last month of food waste, grimy towels, and used gloves lying around a room wherein scientific elements and linens are stored on the Kansas City Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare at 12942 Wornall Road.
Then she sent them to the company places of work of Centers Health Care.
“After I pronounced my worries and despatched the photographs, they terminated me,” Brueggeman said thru email.
Photos supplied with the aid of Brueggeman show luggage of trash used Quik Trip cups, a small box of shaving cream and a disposable razor, and what seems to be a chunk of chocolate cake in a Styrofoam bowl sitting at the floor and counters of the supply room.
Under Missouri guidelines, nursing homes are to save linens and clinical elements “in a smooth area and protected from infection,” and personnel is to eat most effectively in certain areas.
Jeffrey Jacomowitz, a spokesman for Centers Health Care, emailed a statement that did now not address the sterility problems raised with the aid of Brueggeman. However, they denied that her firing had something to do with her reporting them.
“It was in the great hobby of the Kansas City Center and Centers Health Care to component ways with Ms. Brueggeman because of ongoing undisclosed problems,” the assertion read.
Brueggeman said Wednesday she turned into “no longer allowed” to comment similarly on the problem.
Centers Health Care has recognition at the East Coast as a corporation to turn around suffering nursing homes. It made its first foray into the Midwest remaining yr, when it acquired the Kansas City property and one at 5211 W. 103rd St. In Overland Park and one in Butler, Mo.
So a long way, the facilities have continued to battle with bad rankings from the federal government’s Nursing Home Compare program. Inspections at the Overland Park facility have located unsanitary food storing and dealing with, failure to develop care plans and speak them with citizens and families, failure to save you strain sores, and failure to correctly inventory and song citizens’ assets.
The most recent published inspection at the Kansas City facility, performed in September, also determined quite many sanitation issues in residents’ lavatories and showers. Inspectors documented “gloves and particles strewn at the ground,” “unknown stains and discoloration” in a sink, “dinner plate size, brown liquid substance on the ground beneath the sink,” and several empty lavatory papers holders.
One resident, who turned into interviewed, reportedly advised the inspectors, “Have you looked at the shower homes but? They are disgusting. I wouldn’t take a shower in there if you paid me. It seems like they have used the sink for hair color, and it has been like that per week. It is sinful. We all have told them approximately the circumstance of these shower houses, and nobody cares. They forget about it.”
There have also been protection problems overdue.
A damaged sprinkler head prompted a portion of the ceiling to cave in on the Kansas City facility in January — the equal month that the Overland Park facility misplaced hot water for extra than an afternoon.
Brueggeman, who has been a nurse because 2001, said that shortly earlier than she changed into fire, a pipe leak flooded elements of the Kansas City facility, leaving oxygen device and different substances “in a pool of water everywhere in the basement” and soaking patient records.
The declaration despatched by way of Jacomowitz said citizens’ oxygen resources had been no longer compromised.
“Furthermore, like most business homes at some stage in u. S ., small leaks take place occasionally, and these leaks are repaired,” the assertion stated. “The small leak at the Kansas City Center that occurred a few weeks in the past become no extraordinary. It was found, controlled, and repaired speedily without any damage by any means.”
