Feds must probe Sussex nursing home, senator says

By: Kaitlyn Kanzler
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... A ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is urging federal agencies to look into "egregious conditions" at the woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center in Andover.
..... Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote a letter to U. S. Attorney General Merrickl Garland, calling for an investigation into possible violations of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. Grassley is also calling for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to do its own review.
..... Admissions to Woodland were suspended in February [2022] by the New Jersey Department of Health after allegations of abuse and neglect of the residents were reported. The allegations include verbal abuse, failing to help residents in distress and not taking precautions during the pandemic.
..... "New Jersey surveyors also found Woodland failed to monitor for signs of COVID-19 among their residents, which could be why cases increased by 102 in the span of just one week between December 23, 2021, and January 1, 2022," Grassley wrote in the letter.
..... woodland has been in the news since the pandemic began. In the spring of 2020, 17 bodies were found there in a makeshift morgue, which prompted an investigation by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The investigation revealed a number of health and safety violations, and a corrective action plan was ordered. In February, [2022] the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services threatened to terminate woodland from participation in Medicare and Medicaid. The facility has until August [2022] to be in compliance with the federal requirements, officials said.
..... Grassley urged the Department of Justice to expand its investigation of New Jersey's nursing home facilities to include Woodland. there is already a federal investigation into the Veterans Memorial Home at Menlo Park and the Veterans Memorial Home at Paramus, facilities that saw a high number of deaths during the height of the pandemic.
..... The Department of Justice previously declined to open a CRIPA investigation into nursing home deaths in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

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