ProPublica-caliber journalism right here in the News-Journal. We’re talking malign neglect–in assisted living facilities–and in the disgraceful response by the budget-smoothing lackeys of the Carney Administration. Read the piece, if you can (the work of the 3 or 4 legit reporters on staff is why I subscribe).
Newman first frames the story through the eyes of one of the victims’ family. Then:
Unlike nursing homes, assisted living facilities have no federal oversight. It’s up to the state to regulate, which can result in a patchwork of accountability.
Delaware’s Division of Health Care Quality, which is supposed to be a state watchdog for these facilities, has struggled for about a decade to investigate complaints – particularly for assisted living facilities. A Delaware Online/News Journal investigation found:
- The division has about 1,500 complaints for nursing homes and assisted living facilities in its backlog. Data analyzed by The News Journal shows that since 2013 assisted living complaints are overall often investigated less than nursing homes.
- The state has chronically struggled with hiring and retaining staff to investigate these facilities, in part because of low salaries. The division has asked for additional funding in recent years but has been denied by the governor’s office.
- Dover Place, at various points, did not inform Claudia’s family or her physician about the severity of her wounds, as well as declined to send her to the emergency room that November when the infection worsened. Before the state investigated Claudia’s complaint, Dover Place had already been cited for neglect twice in 2021.
One reason why assisted living facilities have no federal oversight is because assisted living facilities were never supposed to have residents requiring a higher standard of care living in them. But the nursing home industry, faced with tougher regulations at both the federal and state levels, has turned many assisted living facilities into de facto nursing homes, unencumbered by the staffing requirements they should have.
Our pathetic governor not only placed the fox in control of this henhouse by inexplicably putting nursing home industry lobbyist Yrene Waldron (since ‘retired’) in charge of enforcement, a sick joke that resulted in avoidable deaths in nursing facilities during the pandemic. He has also routinely refused requests to pony up a few more dollars to provide adequate staffing. Why? Budget-smoothing:
The Division of Health Care Quality, one of the smallest divisions in the state’s health department, is responsible for regulating healthcare facilities, particularly the nearly 80 nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
But the division does not have enough surveyors to inspect them.
“The number of facilities keeps growing, but unfortunately our staffing numbers aren’t growing with that,” Corinna Getchell, division director, told a legislative task force in late March 2023.
Since fiscal year 2020, the division has requested a total of $1.67 million in additional funding, particularly for the completion of annual and complaint surveys. But it has only been allocated $153,600 in Gov. John Carney’s recommended budget. This occurred in fiscal year 2021.
For the upcoming fiscal year, the division asked for $851,700, which would specifically go toward hiring contractors to conduct complaint and survey inspections. It was the division’s only request and was denied by the governor’s office, according to recommended budget documents.
When lawmakers asked about this during the health department’s budget hearing, Office of Management and Budget Director Cerron Cade said the administration has added this to its “wish list” in the event new revenue comes in this spring.
“If we had unlimited resources and the ability to just grow their operating budget all at once this year,” he said, “we would have taken advantage of it.
Bullshit. They have the resources, which are far less than unlimited.
Although this is not the focus of Newman’s story, this illustrates the unbridled stupidity of Carney’s budget-smoothing policy–one which every state agency under the Governor’s control must adhere to. I’ll ask again: Why does budget-smoothing apply to everything except (a) budget-busting tax cuts; and (b) tens of million of dollars in giveaways to corporate beneficiaries? Do long-term care residents deserve no less from the state than billion-dollar corporations? My opinion is the diametric opposite of that of the Worst Governor In Delaware History.
I’ve only scratched the surface of what is an award-worthy story. I am so glad that Newman wrote the story through the eyes of both a victim and a victim’s family. She provides the humanity that is completely lacking in anything this Governor has ever sought to accomplish. Gotta say: Worth a subscription.