New York Nursing Home Shut Down Due to Abuse and Neglect

An adult care home in Fulton, New York, has been closed by the State Health Department after inspectors uncovered widespread abuse and neglect of residents. A number of issues were discovered during a routine inspection at Rosewood Adult Care Home last week, causing the state take over the home and begin relocating the residents at the 24-bed facility to other nursing homes and adult care facilities.

According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, problems at the New York nursing home which led to its closure included:

• All residents were forced to get close-cropped haircuts from an unlicensed teenage boy after head lice were discovered on two residents. Infection control material was also not used between the haircuts.
• All of the clothing in the 24-bed facility was taken to the laundry for cleaning, leaving residents with only bed sheets to wear and bare mattresses to lie on.
• After a female resident fell and suffered a head injury, the home failed to inform the resident’s doctor.
• A resident was given Tylenol instead of the prescribed pain medication for arthritis.
• A patient was found to have bedsores as a result of being left in one position for too long.
• Several residents were found wearing soiled and urine-soaked clothing.
• A doctor’s order to move a resident to the first floor was ignored until after the resident fell down the stairs.
• The nursing home did not maintain medication records for several patients.

The New York Health Department has suspended the operating certificates of the Fulton nursing home as well as the Rosewood Senior Citizens Home in Cincinnatus, New York. Both homes were owned and operated by Rose Shorter.