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STATE INTERVENES AT TROUBLED MINNEAPOLIS
VETERANS HOME -- Will monitor operations after
a
report found three residents died after neglect
or medication error.
Background here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfMAR07/nf030107-7.htm
Story here...
http://www.lacrossetribune.com/
articles/2007/03/02/mn/02min.txt
Story below:
---------------
State intervenes at troubled Minneapolis vets
home
By The Associated Press
.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — By order of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Department of Health
team arrived at the Minneapolis Veterans Home on Wednesday to monitor
operations there after a report found three residents died after neglect
or medication error.
That prompted veterans groups and legislators to question why the
facility has been so continually troubled even as the four other state
veterans homes have reported few problems in recent years. The question
no one wanted to or seemed to be able to answer: Are residents of the
home safe?
Lyle Foltz, the state adjutant for the Minnesota American Legion,
expressed outrage that long-standing problems at the home have yet to be
addressed — but said he didn’t want to speculate on whether residents
and their families should be worried. “I have no comment on that,” he
said.
State Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach said she didn’t want to
encourage further worry. She said Pawlenty’s actions are the state’s
best effort to quickly address the problems.
“The families need to take comfort that there is an acknowledgment of
major problems, and that very out-of-the-ordinary action is being taken
to correct them,” Mandernach said.
Pawlenty on Wednesday called the situation “unacceptable. We should be
offering our veterans in Minnesota the best care that we have, and
that’s not what they’re getting at the Minneapolis Veterans Home.”
Pawlenty ordered the Department of Health to intervene after its
investigations uncovered the three deaths in the 418-bed home. Two of
the men who died were in hospice care and were apparently given drugs
that they were allergic to, though investigators didn’t determine if
that caused their deaths. The third man was a diabetic who died after
five nurses improperly monitored his plunging blood sugar, and one gave
him medication that lowered it further.
The Department of Health team that arrived Wednesday is made up of five
registered nurses and a compliance director, and their “first and
foremost charge is making sure that the residents are safe,” said Health
Department spokesman Doug Schultz.
Pawlenty also ordered the home to hire a long-term care consultant to
assume responsibility for the home’s operations, at least for a time. He
issued an executive order to establish a state commission and charge it
with determining how the state’s five veterans homes should be
administered and operated.
The Minneapolis home has a long history of problems similar to the
current ones. In 1987, then-Gov. Rudy Perpich ordered the Department of
Human Services to temporarily take over the home after it failed to
disclose that three residents died under unusual circumstances.
In one of those cases, nurses in the home were blamed for giving a
resident a drug he was allergic to. In another, employees failed to
recognize symptoms of an acute illness.
Jeff Johnson, chairman of the state’s Veteran Home Board, said that the
Minneapolis home has suffered in comparison to the other four veterans
homes — in Hastings, Fergus Falls, Luverne and Silver Bay — because it
has more residents and many with complex medical needs, coupled with a
higher staff turnover because metro-area employees have other job
opportunities.
In recent years state inspectors have continued to cite numerous
infractions in yearly inspections, leading to frequent changes in the
Minneapolis home’s leadership. Several influential lawmakers expressed
frustration Wednesday that the Legislature’s efforts to improve care at
the facility seem to have accomplished little.
“I do not believe these problems are due to underfunding,” said Sen.
Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, pointing out that last year lawmakers
approved $4 million in money for the Minneapolis home to boost staffing
levels. Berglin, chairwoman of an influential Senate healthcare panel,
said she’d hold more hearings next week on the home’s problems.
The facility also must respond to federal government concerns. Last
Friday, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs notified the home that
it “most likely will take steps” to end daily payments for the care of
veterans — about 20 percent of the home’s revenue.
The home has more than half of the 598 nursing home beds in the state
system, and the VA pays about $14 million a year to help with care in
all five homes.
Veterans Home Board Chairman Johnson said he welcomed Pawlenty’s
intervention.
“What’s going on is not acceptable, and it has to be corrected,” Johnson
said. “No one wants to hear that it’s going to take time, because we
don’t have time.”
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Larry Scott --
