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 city’s north side. Some didn’t immediately know where their loved ones were taken.
Alvin Cooper of East St. Louis, Illinois, was preparing Monday to fill out a missing person’s 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.
“They don’t know where he is,” Alvin Cooper said. “I’ve burnt two tanks of gas going back and forth to that nursing home trying to find out what’s going on. I don’t know if he’s somewhere safe or what’s going to happen to him.”
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.
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 doesn’t 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.
So the CEO evicted a bunch of medically vulnerable seniors with no notice, then robbed dozens of workers of their pay right before Christmas.
How is this guy free to walk the streets?
And how are the workers being kind of blamed for everything, not him.
Money-based penalties only keep poor people from stepping out of line; if you’re rich enough, you can literally pay for what you did and move on.
Not if the money-based penalties scales with your net worth.
They never seem to do that. It’s always a fine that would be ruinous for most, but a slap on the wrist for the people actually committing the crimes.
Yeah those fines were a joke. $140k over two years for a place that likely charges that much per year for each of its 170 residents? They don’t care.
If the system isn’t going to take care of him the workers should. This is a situation that calls for a bucket of hot tar and a big bag of feathers.
'murica. Money = freedom. The more money you have, the more freedoms you have.
MURICA FUCK YEA
Because nobody will post his address.
Buckle up boomers. The economy you created won’t spare you either. You will begin to see more and more nursing homes go under as the cost of care skyrockets and not enough younger people willing to get into medical care because of the low pay and brutal hours/working conditions. We already have an elderly care shortfall in some areas but it’ll be unimaginable in 10 to 20 years as the youngest baby boomers are 59. About 70 million boomers are entering into late stages of life with no one to care for them due to money.
I just turned fifty. I’m expecting to receive a “reverse life mortgage” from Soylent Corporation before the end.
“Here’s eight thousand bucks. Go have fun. Take a vacation. We get your corneas, liver and kidneys on the first of the month.”
They won’t have to pay you in our brave new Oligarchy. It will be mandated that all viable organs get donated to the investor class to help the economy. Those making over $500,000 a year excepted.
oh yeah, not just boomers - there’s a few of the previous generation left still. my folks (boomers) have a 102 year old neighbor, she was put in a home 10 or 15 years ago, got tired of it after a few months and drove back to her house. she fell down last week, my dad found her on the floor after a day or two, she broke a bunch of bones but didnt want to go to the hospital because “that’s where people go to die”. maybe she’ll make it out, she’s a tough lady.
we’ll see a hell of a population shrinkage here in a decade or two.
Yep. My 81-year-old mother is pre-Boomer. Thankfully, she’s able to live on her own with a housemate. I really don’t want to see her die in a nursing home like my dad. They’re miserable places. There was no choice with him because he had dementia, but I hope she will be able to live whatever is left of her life in the house she loves.
My lovely wife works in the kitchen of a retirement home. She has watched things go down in the elderly care industry for several years now.
And you’re not wrong, although I think your estimate of 10 years is too generous. Elderly people who don’t have any assets like a home will naturally assume they can just stay with their kids. Except both of their adult children probably need to work. They don’t have time or money to take care of Mom or Dad. They can’t take them to appointments. They can’t help with medication. They may not even have a space for them at home. And they certainly do not have $3,000 a month so they can put mom or dad in a nursing home.
I imagine there are many who would do their best. But then there ard those like my wife’s parents, who were and still are abusive, terrible people who have burned every bridge they could, and are now having to cope with the idea that none of the family they gaslit for decades wants to help.
gotta pay your employees. they did the right thing by leaving. hopefully the affected families all sue whomever owned the nursing home.
I read the whole article about this case, and I know this is generally an anomalous situation. Still… The only way I’ll ever go to any assisted living place is inconscious and after a fight.
