Two nursing homes in the Pell City area have been named in a national report of having major deficiencies and instances of putting residents into harm’s way.

The report comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, along with reports from the Long Term Care Community Coalition and propublica.org.

According to the reports, Diversicare of Pell City along with the Village at Cook Springs both made the list of Special Focus Facilities (SFF) or the list of one-star rated nursing homes. Reports listed by the Department of Health and Human Services document instances of noncompliance, breakdowns in communication and neglect that have put residents of their facilities in harm’s way.

Diversicare was listed by Propublica as having a severity score of “L” after their latest report from December of 2020, meaning they have put “immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety” and that “deficiency is widespread” throughout the facility. However, the facility did not receive any fines.

According to the report, Diversicare was running behind on effectively testing staff and residents for COVID. They are listed as having two infection-related deficiencies, 144 cases and 24 deaths since March of 2020. Since the start of COVID, the virus has ravaged nursing homes, highlighting the struggle many nursing homes have of containing the spread.

“The facility failed to conduct routine and outbreak testing for seven of 12 sampled residents and 41 of 42 sampled staff, when it was indicated. Since the week ending 10/7/2020, the facility’s county positivity rate has been greater than 10 percent, which indicates routine testing of staff twice per week,” the Health and Human Services report says. “The facility failed to consistently conduct routine testing for the months of October and November 2020.”

The report added that many people were put in immediate jeopardy as a result of the faulty COVID practices.

Attempts to contact Diversicare of Pell City were unsuccessful.

For Village at Cook Springs nursing home, their most recent report comes from July of 2019, where they were flagged for five deficiencies – one of them virus related – while they also were fined a total of $454,000. They were given a severity score of “J,” meaning the facility had “immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety” but that “deficiency is isolated.”

Other claims in the report deal with alleged neglect, which in a couple instances led to the sexual mistreatment of two residents by a visitor of the facility on at least two occasions.

The report reads: “the facility failed to ensure RI (Resident Indicator) #50 and RI #52 were free from abuse perpetrated by a visitor of the facility, who is also the spouse of a resident residing in the facility. On 2/11/2019, without the consent of RI #50, the visitor came up behind RI #50 and placed his hands down the shirt of the resident, while the resident sat in the Dining room. RI #50 stated he/she was scared and shocked by the incident.”

“Due to the facility not implementing interventions to protect and/or prevent further abuse from occurring, on 4/29/2019, without the consent of RI #52, the visitor kissed RI #52 on the forehead and ran his hand down the resident’s clothing from the left breast to the resident’s pubic area. RI #52 was hitting and screaming at the visitor to stop,” the report from Health and Human Services says.

The report went on to add that there were multiple instances of residents hitting or abusing one another, and that each of these instances needs to be reported as abuse to the appropriate channels. However, on at least one occasion, the report says, an incident of resident-on-resident abuse was not reported effectively.

The Village at Cook Springs responded to the allegations and deficiencies listed in the report, saying that no charges were ever pursued as a result of the alleged sexual misconduct and that they take all health and safety conduct seriously.

In a statement, the facility said, “In February 2019, the elderly spouse of one of our residents, who himself resided at a different skilled nursing facility, was accused of inappropriately touching a resident during a visit to our facility. We investigated the matter and reported it to law enforcement and to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Law enforcement did not pursue charges.

“Two months later, the spouse was accused of inappropriately touching another resident while visiting his wife in a public area of our facility. Facility staff was present and immediately intervened. The facility again self-reported the matter to law enforcement and to the state. While law enforcement investigated the allegation and did not pursue charges, we prohibited the spouse from further visiting the facility.”

The Alabama Department of Public Health cited the facility for the incidents.

“While we disagree with the conclusion, we respect the regulatory process and are confident we have addressed any deficiencies perceived by state surveyors,” the statement said.

Cook Springs additionally responded to their one-star rating as a nursing home, the lowest grade a facility can receive. In a statement, Cook Springs called the star-system “flawed” for many reasons, including the stress the star system puts on facilities with residents dealing with dementia.

Part of the reports from Health and Human Services, Propublica and the Long Term Care Community Coalition also deals with late mandatory government surveys of facilities. According to the numbers, over half (59 percent or 135 facilities) of Alabama nursing homes receiving Medicare and Medicaid were at least 18 months late on their government survey.

Alabama is not alone in this problem, as an overwhelming majority of the states have at least one-third of their facilities behind on their government surveys.