Florida nursing home that had 12 people die lays off all 245 workers

[TexasTowelie]

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — A Florida nursing home that had 12 patients die after Hurricane Irma has laid off 245 workers.

The Sun Sentinel reported the layoffs Friday for the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. The facility was evacuated last month, several days after the storm damaged the electric transformer that powered the facility’s air conditioning. State officials later suspended their license, and owners eventually closed the facility permanently.

The layoffs include 79 certified nursing assistants, 37 licensed practical nurses, 23 occupational or physical therapists, 18 registered nurses, 25 environmental or laundry workers, 10 administrative assistants, five doctors, and others who worked in activities, dietary aid, engineering and supplies.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20171007/fla-nursing-home-that-had-12-people-die-lays-off-all-245-workers

[Laffy Kat]

1. What about the management?

Because that was the problem. Long-term care centers usually have very dedicated workers who love the residents and are paid next to nothing. I want to know if the management is still there. There wasn't much to the article except most of the hands-on care providers were axed.

[Gothmog]

2. These people lost their jobs because Gov. Rick Scott would not return his calls?

This nursing home called the number given by Governor Rick Scott several times to ask for help and their messages were ignored. You wonder if Scott cared enough to respond if there would have been any deaths or if these people would still be employed

[Doreen]

3. Where I live that is the whole damn nursing home and all shifts.

Hell, the convenient store down the road to!

[No Vested Interest]

4. "Owners eventually closed the facility permanently". Therefore, it should be obvious

that personnel there would no longer be working there.

It's never great to have to be looking for a new job, especially if one has been working in the same place for a considerable time.
The skills these people have should enable most, if not all, of the laid-off workers to get new jobs fairly quickly

[Princess Turandot]

5. I hope that they launch a criminal investigation of this...

and I don't mean of Scott's phone messages. I think that's a red herring: they needed an electrician and parts to replace a blown A/C transformer. I honestly don't see how Scott's office could have finagled that for them in a timely matter during a mandatory evacuation.

But more importantly, when they couldn't get anyone from his office staff to speak with quickly, they should've gone to Plan B. Actually, 'Plan B' should have been 'Plan A' all along.

Immediately, and literally, across the street from this nursing home is a large hospital complex. They were not affiliated but I believe that the hospital would have assisted them had they asked for help.

Nursing homes send residents to hospitals regularly if the person has an accident and requires evaluation, or needs more advanced diagnostic work etc. That's usually just a day trip. I assume that most of these residents were on Medicaid. It may vary by state, but there are rules that determine 'whose patient is he anyway' in situations like these. If the hospital took these patients in, the home likely could not bill for those days.

And at some point they would no longer be the nursing home's customers. They would be considered as discharged from the home, and admitted to the hospital. In all likelihood, they would have had to go through the paperwork with the state in order to take them on as residents again. (And the hospital would probably have no obligation to transfer the patient to that specific home.)

I believe that they were trying to preserve their revenues, perhaps on order from the person who owned the place. Either that, or the owner put someone in charge of running the place who was terminally stupid.