There was no warning when a line of vans showed up outside St. Louis’ largest nursing home Friday afternoon, workers at the home said.
Older residents, some suffering from dementia, were taken away in wheelchairs while still wearing hospital gowns, employees of the Northview Village nursing home recalled. Amid the chaos as Northview Village emptied its hallways, younger patients, some of whom were being treated for injuries or mental illnesses, took to the streets alone, according to Carolyn Hawthorne, a nurse practitioner who had worked at the facility of care for almost 11 years.
“It was a great travesty,” he said of the sudden closure of Northview Village, which left relatives of some of the home’s 170 residents trying to figure out where their loved ones had been moved. Ms. Hawthorne’s aunt, 73, was among residents suddenly moved to facilities in the region. “It was just heartbreaking.”
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which regulates nursing homes, said it has opened an investigation into the sudden closure of Northview Village, although a representative for the agency said Tuesday he could not comment on the investigation.
A representative for Healthcare Accounting Services, which owns the nursing home, as well as several other care facilities in Missouri and Illinois, said Tuesday that the company would have no comment.
The U.S. nursing home industry has grappled with overlapping challenges in recent years, including staffing shortages exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, sick patients and rising medical and supply costs. As a result, several facilities became insolvent.
Northview Village had been losing money for several years, according to Medicare cost reports. According to SNFdata Resources, which tracks the nursing home industry, Northview Village has been losing money since at least 2018. Data Northview Village provided to Medicare late last year says its 2022 operating expenses total more than 16, 4 million dollars, while its revenue was around $13.3 million.
It is extremely rare for nursing homes to close suddenly. Usually, state regulators give some warning and can work with owners to arrange a sale or at least find new homes for residents.
In the case of Northview Village, employees and relatives said, there was no warning. Workers said they suddenly found themselves unemployed, even as relatives searched for new facilities where their family members had been taken.
Lisa Cox, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said state officials were not notified in advance that the facility was facing serious financial problems and that, as of Tuesday afternoon, some families had yet to find out where their relatives were located due to the “emergent nature of the move”.
Outside the facility Tuesday morning, Mayor Tishaura Jones of St. Louis joined a rally and led employees and their supporters in a chant of “Shame!”
“Shame on this owner for treating the people who live in this facility like pawns who can be moved at a moment’s notice,” he said. “Shame on this owner for not paying employees what they deserve and for closing this facility in the middle of the night.”
The first inkling of the crisis came Friday when workers said they learned they would not be paid, according to Marvetta Harrison, a certified medical technician who has worked at the facility for 37 years.
Soon the vans arrived.
“There was disbelief,” Ms. Harrison, 59, said. “It all happened so fast.”
Ashley Denmark, a St. Louis doctor whose uncle lived in Northview Village, found out about the evacuation on social media. She and other relatives spent the weekend in a state of panic trying to find their uncle, who is 76 and an Army veteran with schizophrenia.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Dr. Denmark said. “He is not someone who is capable of defending himself or protecting himself.”
Marjorie Moore, executive director of VOYCE, a St. Louis group that supports long-term care residents and their relatives, said residents are believed to have been sent to at least 14 other facilities in the region. Many rely on Medicaid, which can complicate efforts to find them a new home, she said.
“These people were certainly not in good health and needed a lot of care,” he said. “It’s almost like their whole world has been ripped away from them.”
Northview Village had received one star, out of five, from a federal rating system, ratings that may be inflated, a Times investigation found this year. According to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the nursing staff at Northview Village had he spent nearly two hours on each resident per day, about half the national average.
Over the past three years, the facility has received more than 20 citations inspectors investigated the complaints. Since March 2021, it has received more than $140,000 in fines for failing to comply with federal standards.
Lenny Jones, the Missouri state director of the Service Employees International Union, said Northview Village has struggled with staffing shortages. In recent years, he said, young people with mental illness and substance abuse problems made up a larger share of the facility’s patients, compared to the predominantly older population.
On Tuesday, workers at the home were trying to find out whether the company intended to pay them for their final weeks of work, even as they rushed to apply for jobs and assistance.
“This was the salary they were expecting before Christmas,” Mr Jones said.
Heidi Haywood, 42, a certified medical technician at the facility, said she planned to spend her advance salary on a modest Christmas dinner for her six children.
“Now I have no job, I have no money and I have very little food left,” he said.
Alain Delaquérière contributed to the research.
