The state Department of Community Health inspected Alzheimer’s Care of Commerce in April but documented none of the abusive treatment that led the GBI to raid the center and issue arrest warrants for the owner and employees Tuesday.
The GBI investigation, also launched in April, amassed evidence of a long list of abuses: patients being slapped, restrained with bed sheets, doused with water and subjected to double-diapering so the staff would have to change them less frequently.
The GBI is also investigating three deaths at the home that occurred since the first of the year, GBI Director Vernon Keenan said Wednesday. In addition, he said, investigators will review the center’s financial records for possible irregularities.
“Things were out of control,” Keenan said Wednesday of conditions at the center. “The facility was not being managed professionally. Checks and balances were not in place, Professional protocols were not being followed.”
Alzheimer’s Care of Commerce is licensed as a personal care home, a type of facility that falls somewhere between a boarding house and a nursing home.
A year ago, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed widespread problems in Georgia’s personal care homes, including what advocates for the elderly and disabled called ineffectual state oversight. The state rarely took strong action, even against operators who repeatedly violated health and safety standards, the AJC’s investigation found.
Keenan declined to comment on DCH’s oversight of the Commerce facility, saying he’s unfamiliar with the agency’s inspection process.
State Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, who has pressed the Legislature on elder abuse issues, said she was concerned that the state DCH did not uncover the problems sooner. She said a newly created state task force on Alzheimer’s would be examining how agencies “regulate all these facilities.”
via State inspection missed abusive treatment in Commerce care home | www.myajc.com.
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