FAYETTEVILLE — An annual inspection at the Fayetteville Veterans Home found violations ranging from issues with infection control to a laboratory test ordered for a patient that was never done.
The forgotten test was one of 13 violations cited in the April survey by the state Office of Long Term Care. Many of the problems listed were similar to those in the 2011 report that tallied 27 citations for the home.
All of the problems have been addressed and corrected, according to Kendall Thornton, public affairs officer for the state Department of Veterans Affairs. Home administrators described each corrective action on the report.
Problems with infection control related to dirty laundry from the room of a patient and the lab test were the two most serious violations. The missed tests resulted in an H-rated citation, the most severe, for administration. The 2011 report contained no H-rated citations.
“This report shows two violations serious enough that they were considered to cause harm to patients, but in fact, the patients could be harmed by any one of these problems,” said Martha Deaver, president of Arkansans Advocates for Nursing Home Residents, a patient-rights nonprofit group. “Even smaller citations for things like leaving oxygen tubing on the floor speak to sloppy practices and sloppy care.”
Nadine Huddleston, administrator of the Fayetteville Veterans Home, did not return calls to her office this week. She was in Little Rock on business, according to a secretary at the home.
The director of the state Veterans Affairs Department resigned in May at the request of Gov. Mike Beebe after financial problems at the agency came to light. No administrator has resigned or has been removed despite two annual reports in a row showing substandard care at the Fayetteville home, Deaver said. Such priorities are wrong, she said.
“This is not about money. It is about accountability for the needless suffering our veterans had to endure,” Deaver said. “These are people who do not have the ability to care for themselves after they’ve given everything for this country, and we won’t even follow the laws on giving them care.”
The inspectors will follow up to ensure that each violation is addressed according to the plans submitted by home administrators, according to a letter from the long-term care office. The latest survey did not note problems with medication errors, food service or inaccurate medical charts, all of which prompted citations in 2011.
The 13 citations are more than the statewide average of nine per nursing home facility, according to a comparative website run by Medicare. Statewide, homes ranged from no violations to 37.
The report will undoubtedly be a point of discussion at the July meeting of the state Veterans Affairs Commission, said Rep. John Charles Edwards, D-Little Rock, the commission chairman. Edwards is also a Iraq veteran.
“We’re always looking for everything we can to improve quality of care, and we really need to look to the overall future of veterans homes in the state and what we need to do,” Edwards said. “It’s a topic that requires constant vigilance.”
Edwards hadn’t seen the 2012 report, but said the corrective plans outlined after the 2011 report satisfied him that each area of concern was properly addressed.
The Fayetteville home opened in 2006 on two renovated floors of the former Washington Regional Medical Center at the corner of College Avenue and North Street. It’s one of two nursing homes in Arkansas dedicated to veterans, and the only one run by the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs. The 108-bed home rents its space from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which secured a $1, 99-year lease to the building in 2005.
The home only has staffing to accommodate an average of 87 patients, according to Thornton. The home had 82 residents last week. The Fayetteville home provides more medical services than a similar home in Little Rock, the only other state-run veterans’ home. The Little Rock home is scheduled to close within a year.
The Fayetteville Veterans Home scored two out of five stars in a quality survey conducted by Medicare. The home was given five stars for staffing, but only two stars in quality measures and one star in health inspections.
Residents, however, routinely give the home good reviews, said Steve Gray, veterans affairs liaison for Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark.
“Nobody ever goes through an inspection without some sort of writeup. That’s something any veteran knows from their time in service,” Gray said. “What you have to decide is whether something is important, whether it’s a dealbreaker or not. In this case, we don’t hear any complaints, any grumbling, from the veterans. If things were going wrong, I have no doubt they’d be calling, but they all seem very satisfied with the care.”
The Fayetteville home transferred more than $600,000 last year to help cover costs at the Little Rock home, which doesn’t offer a level of service eligible to receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. With the Little Rock home scheduled for closure, the 60 veterans there must be relocated.
If the staffing and payment schedule can be worked out, moving at least some of the Little Rock veterans to Fayetteville should be considered, Gray said.
“Veterans have a unique bond, one that never really goes away,” he said. “There’s definitely a good argument that it’s better to keep veterans together and keep those bonds intact if at all possible.”
Deaver, the patient advocate, said moving them to the Fayetteville home shouldn’t be considered.
“The Little Rock home has major problems with the building, but still got better reviews than the almost-new Fayetteville home has over the last several years,” she said. “I can’t see why they’d ever want to move to a facility with that many problems.”