The Associated Press
Shawano County’s attorney says a published report that the county continued placing sick and indigent people in assisted-living homes even though the facilities had a history of operational concerns is incorrect.
Staffers at four facilities owned by Suamico-based Country Healthcare Inc. harmed residents mentally or physically by forcibly restraining them, drugging them into stupors or leaving people with violent records together, according to state inspection reports reviewed by Press-Gazette Media.
The company’s properties include Longview Terrace I and Longview Terrace II, both located on the same campus in Suamico, Country House in Oconto and Woodland Manor in Pulaski.
The report indicated Shawano, Oconto and Kewaunee counties placed people with Country Healthcare even after abuses were reported.
Shawano County Corporation Counsel Tony Kordus, however, said the county removed the residents it had placed at Longview Terrace I and had reported the alleged abuse there to the state. The county has not placed residents at Longview Terrace I since that time, he said, but has continued to use other Country Healthcare sites.
According to the report, the counties paid Country Healthcare a combined $2.5 million in federal funds since 2005 to care for people who could no longer help themselves due to age, illness, poor mental health, or addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The state inspected the facilities for abuse six times in eight years and issued hundreds of citations for violations since 2000. Abuse complaints in 2006 and 2013 were substantiated.
Country Healthcare Inc. blamed county case managers for the problems.
Regulators notified the counties each time enforcement actions were taken against a facility serving one of their residents, said Otis Woods, administrator for the state Department of Health Services’ division of quality assurance.
Shawano and Oconto counties renewed contracts to keep placing residents in Country Healthcare facilities through 2014, while Kewaunee County said it would be reluctant to work with the facilities in the future.
The state’s inspection reports cite a number of instances where residents were mentally or physically harmed.
In one case, a 44-year-old with a traumatic brain injury was found lying in a ditch 500 feet away from the Kewaunee County building, his wheelchair overturned. Staffers told inspectors they didn’t know he was gone. A few weeks later the man was discovered to have a broken nose, and again staffers said they couldn’t explain what happened.
In another case, staff from the company’s Oconto facility locked a 56-year-old man who had obsessive-compulsive disorder out of his bedroom and bathroom, causing him to soil himself.
Kordus said the county promptly removed two people from Longview Terrace I in October 2012 after learning about abuse there.
“Shawano County is the one who reported the alleged abuse to the state,” Kordus said.
He said the county should be applauded for reporting the issue, which he said helped prevent the abuse from continuing.
Kordus said there have been no placements at Longview Terrace I since then.
Shawano County financial records show it has contracted with Country Healthcare since 2010, according to Press-Gazette Media, and continued placing residents in the company’s properties at least through January. The county had paid the company $128,329 through the end of January.
“We have used other Country Healthcare facilities on a limited basis,” Kordus said.
Kordus said the county has not received any complaints regarding any other facility owned or operated by Country Healthcare Inc.
“No complaints of abuse or neglect have been raised regarding any Shawano County client at any of these facilities other than Longview Terrace I – which Shawano County appropriately addressed,” Kordus said.
He also said the couple of residents placed at those other facilities have said they like it there.
“Implying that Shawano County spent $128,000 at Longview Terrace I, or anywhere else, after learning of alleged abuse at the facility would be false and defamatory,” Kordus wrote in an email to Press-Gazette Media. “(The county) utilizes its best efforts to find suitable placement facilities.
“As in this case, as soon as Shawano County learned, or would learn in the future, that an independently owned and operated facility may not be suitable, Shawano County takes the appropriate action. Make no mistake about it, Shawano County has done an admirable job in this regard.”
Oconto County renewed a 1-year, $400,000 contract, effective Jan. 1, with two of the facilities with histories of issues. Craig Johnson, the county’s director of health and human services, said he couldn’t discuss the issue.
“I’ve been told we’re not going to comment,” he said. “There’s things still going on in that facility. This is a small community.”
In Kewaunee County, spokesman Greg Thousand said he took over the human services department in July and couldn’t comment on anything that happened before then.
“Given recent history, we’d be exceedingly reluctant to work with this entity,” he said.