7 Louisiana Nursing Homes Lose Their Licenses After Hurricane Ida

U.S.|Seven Louisiana nursing homes suffer their licenses aft evacuating residents to a warehouse.

• Sept. 8, 2021Updated 12:27 p.m. ET

The authorities of Louisiana has revoked the licenses of 7 nursing homes that evacuated much than 800 residents up of Hurricane Ida to a squalid warehouse northbound of New Orleans wherever respective radical died.

“All of these nursing facilities intelligibly failed to execute their exigency preparedness plans to supply indispensable attraction and services to their residents,” Courtney N. Phillips, caput of the Louisiana Department of Health, said successful a connection connected Tuesday. “When issues arose post-storm, we present cognize the level of attraction for these residents plummeted.”

The 7 nursing homes are present prohibited from admitting caller patients oregon taking successful those who lived determination earlier the storm.

Ms. Phillips said the proprietor of the nursing homes failed to pass the concern to authorities wellness officials. When the authorities investigated aft getting connection of mediocre conditions astatine the warehouse, a surveyor was expelled from the spot and authorities employees were taxable to intimidation, she said.

“Ultimately, lives were mislaid — these were grandparents, neighbors and friends, and we cognize families are hurting,” she said.

Seven residents who were held astatine the warehouse person died; officials classified respective of those deaths arsenic “storm-related.”

All 7 nursing homes are owned by Bob G. Dean Jr., a businessman successful Baton Rouge. Efforts to scope Mr. Dean were not instantly successful. He antecedently suggested successful a tv interrogation that the fig of deaths was not atypical.

“Normally with 850 radical you’ll person a mates a day, truthful we did truly bully with taking attraction of people,” Mr. Dean told WAFB.

But the families of immoderate of those residents person described conditions astatine the warehouse successful Independence, La., arsenic loud, soiled and uncomfortable. Residents slept connected mattresses connected the floor. They described the nutrient arsenic mediocre and said they were made to relieve themselves successful five-gallon buckets.

State officials past week removed each the residents from the warehouse and relocated them to nursing homes; much than a twelve needed to beryllium hospitalized.

Before Hurricane Ida made landfall, the authorities said, the warehouse appeared to conscionable minimum requirements for providing harmless structure “for a precise abbreviated play of time.” There were plans for staffing, nutrient work and laundry, potable water, portable toilets and a moving generator appropriately sized for the site.

But conditions astatine the warehouse deteriorated pursuing the storm, authorities officials said, and Mr. Dean did not alert the authorities oregon petition help.