Image by Vanessa Edwards
Argus: My heart goes out to the staff and residents of Northview Village in the city. I am hoping that the family is eventually reunited with their loved ones.
BYĀ JIM SALTERĀ ANDĀ HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH/AP
ST. LOUIS (AP) ā
The abrupt shutdown of Northview Village Nursing Home on Friday came after workers learned they might not be paid and walked out, confusing residents and their relatives. Many family members gathered through the day Saturday outside the facility on the cityās north side. Some didnāt immediately know where their loved ones were taken.
Alvin Cooper of East St. Louis, Illinois, was preparing Monday to fill out a missing personās report on his 35-year-old son. Alvin Cooper Jr. has lived at Northview Village for several months while recovering from a gunshot wound to the head and a drug addiction.
āThey donāt know where he is,ā Alvin Cooper said. āIāve burnt two tanks of gas going back and forth to that nursing home trying to find out whatās going on. I donāt know if heās somewhere safe or whatās going to happen to him.ā
The difficulties started Friday when, according to the union representing workers, more than 130 people went unpaid, and it became unclear if their checks would be forthcoming.
Marvetta Harrison, 59, a certified medical technician, said workers received emails from the company this weekend promising theyāll be paid, but it was unclear when.
āThis is real wrong,ā Harrison said. āI have worked in that building for 37 years. Not only did they mistreat us, they mistreated the residents we take care of.ā
Northview Village has been fined 12 times for federal violations since March 2021, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Fines totaled over $140,000 and ranged from $2,200 to more than $45,000. The federal agency gives Northview a one-star rating out of a possible five, but doesnāt spell out reasons for the fines.
In addition, the state health department website lists nearly two dozen Northview investigations since 2016. The most recent complaint, from February, said a resident was able to get out of the building through an unsecured door. A 2021 complaint alleged the facility failed to investigate allegations that residents left the nursing home and brought drugs into it.
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services spokeswoman Lisa Cox said the agency was notified around 4:15 p.m. Friday that the nursing home was closing. The operator implemented an evacuation plan and emergency medical service workers helped relocate residents to other nursing homes, Cox said in a statement Monday.
āThe final resident left the facility before 6 a.m. Saturday,ā Cox said. āOur team continued working through the weekend following up with the receiving facilities to check in on the residents who had been transferred.ā
Shamell King, an assistant manager at another St. Louis-area nursing home, Superior Manor, told theĀ St. Louis Post-DispatchĀ that some Northview Village residents arrived without paperwork documenting their medical histories or medication needs.
Phone calls to Northview Village went unanswered Monday. Calls also were unanswered at suburban St. Louis-based Healthcare Accounting Services, the company that owns the nursing home and five others.
On Friday, employees began to question why their bi-weekly paychecks were late. They found out the payments werenāt coming at all, said Marjorie Moore, executive director of VOYCE, a St. Louis agency that serves as an ombudsman for long-term care residents and their families.
The shutdown began as employees voiced their concerns, said Lenny Jones, state director for the Service Employees International Union Healthcare union, which represents about 100 of the roughly 130 displaced workers.
āThey ran out of money to make payroll, caused this massive disruption, and just quickly moved forward with their goal, which was to shutter this facility,ā Jones said. āYou would have to have been planning to move 175 residents in the dead of night.ā
Shuttle buses took residents to at least 15 different facilities across the St. Louis area, Moore said. Many patients departed with nothing but what they were wearing.