Queens nursing home: Was it negligent during Sandy? Part 2 of 2

In our previous post, we discussed some of the allegations of negligence at a Queens nursing home during Hurricane Sandy. More details follow.

In preparation for Hurricane Sandy, the state health department ordered care facilities such as Promenade to stay at 150 percent of normal staffing levels, to stock at least three days worth of food, and ensure that backup generators were in working order. However, Promenade appears not to have made such preparations.

The allegations about the nursing home’s owners and managers come from several staff members, as well as from state officials who tried to contact the facility about preparations for the storm. In fact, one nurse said that during preparations for evacuation, the staff was ordered to stop. The facilities director at a nearby nursing home noted that the owner of Promenade requested that he be given flashlights and batteries, as his facility did not have enough.

After the patents were evacuated, some remained in emergency shelters for several days before being moved to other nursing homes – again, without records and information. Promenade nurses and aides who had visited patients in the immediate aftermath of the storm stopped going to the shelters because it was deemed too expensive, according to some shelter workers. One of the nursing homes where Promenade patients were sent tried unsuccessfully for nine days to contact the facility. Relatives trying to find their family members report that their calls were not returned and in some instances the whereabouts of their loved ones remains unknown.

The nursing home owners deny that they were negligence at a Queens nursing home by failing to provide proper care during the storm. In fact, they point to the fact that they were able to evacuate with no loss of life as an indicator of proper care. That they don’t know where all their patients landed appears to be less urgent to the facility’s owners than to the anxious families.

Source: New York Times, “Nursing Home Is Faulted Over Care After Storm,” Nov. 10, 2012.