(The Center Square) – The Louisiana Department of Health has terminated Medicaid provider agreements for seven nursing homes involved in Hurricane Ida evacuations during which seven elder residents died amid “unsafe, unsanitary and unhealthy conditions.”
The nursing homes are owned by the same owner, Bob Dean, and more than 800 residents were moved to a warehouse in Tangipahoa Parish before Ida’s landfall Aug. 29. Site conditions rapidly deteriorated after the storm passed, health officials said.
“It is the opinion of LDH that all seven facilities have failed to properly implement post-landfall emergency preparedness plans to provide essential care and services to their residents,” LDH lawyer Stephen Russo said Tuesday during a hurricane recovery press conference led by Gov. John Bel Edwards. “The lack of adequate care for these residents is inhumane and goes against the rules, regulations and applicable statutes.”
While the ongoing investigation does not allow for the release of detailed information, Russo said health authorities first became aware of the situation Aug. 30 after learning 8 inches of water had infiltrated the make-shift housing site.
A Health Department surveyor was dispatched to the warehouse location in Independence, where she attempted to tour the site and begin interviewing elder residents, Russo said.
“My understanding is that a site manager and nursing home administrator came up and informed our surveyor that the owner was on the phone and insisted on talking to the surveyor. At that time the surveyor informed us that the owner told her to get off of his property,” he said.
A team of surveyors and inspectors returned the next day and determined the site posed unacceptable health risks.
“We knew then that we needed to get in there and commence rescue efforts,” Russo said.
Health officials directed the removal and transition of hundreds of elder residents away from the warehouse to licensed elder care facilities mostly in neighboring areas.
Russo said LDH employees were subjected to “intimidation” during the two-day process, were initially prohibited from conducting on-site inspections and were provided false or conflicting information by the nursing homes’ owner.
The state's investigation will look into pre-landfall 911 calls that do not appear to have been relayed to Health Department and state Medicaid authorities, Russo said.
“We will put just as much effort into that period of time as we will the post-landfall time,” he said.
Attorney General Jeff Landry expressed concerned that the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which he oversees, was not informed about potential elder abuse and neglect before the first several deaths.
Landry, who has publicly feuded with Edwards over COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates, also said he was concerned the sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish and the police chief of Independence are brothers of the governor.
“Our goal will be to determine who decided to move these patients to this apparently unsafe and potentially inappropriate facility," Landry said. "We wish to determine who authorized that these patients be moved to that facility, who oversaw the movement, who later turned away career staff members of the Louisiana Department of Health when they attempted to look into this situation.
“And why did the police chief and the sheriff state an investigation was not needed,” he said. “How exactly did these deaths occur?”
Russo said the investigation includes the state police, the Office of the Inspector General and the regional office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Dallas.
The seven nursing homes are South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab in Lafourche Parish; River Palms Nursing and Rehab and Maison Orleans Health Care Center in Orleans Parish; Park Place Healthcare Nursing Center, West Jefferson Health Care Center and Maison DeVille Home of Harvey in Jefferson Parish; and Maison DeVille Nursing Home in Terrebonne.
There is nothing illegal per se about moving a large number of people to an evacuation site, said Russo, as long as the site has food, water, clean linens, basic health necessities and “the minimum necessary components to provide for the health, safety and wellness of those residents.”
