Nursing Home Meth Lab Fire

There was an explosion and fire at Park Haven Nursing Home in Ashtabula, OH; the result of a meth lab allegedly built by visitors of a Park Haven resident.  According to police reports the resident was aware of the meth lab in his room.  Park Haven Nursing Home is a Medicare/Medicaid certified SNF/LTC facility operating with a 50 bed capacity; in the world of LTC this is a small facility.  I've worked in nursing homes that have upwards of 240 residents.  This can only be the result of a severe lack of oversight on not only the part of management of Park Haven, but also the result of staff who lack empathy and the ability to advocate for their residents. 
Park Haven has received citations from the Dept of Health which include an Immediate Jeopardy (IJ) tag because they failed to give each resident care and services to get or keep the highest quality of life possible.  They were also given an Actual Harm tag because they did not make sure that the nursing home area is free of dangers that cause accidents. What is most frightening to me as a Long term care social worker is this tag; Park Haven failed to keep each resident free from physical restraints, unless needed for medical treatment.  Physical restraints have not been used in Nursing Homes for decades.  Hospitals continue to use physical restraints when necessary for patient safety, but nursing homes have been tasked with removing physical and pharmacological restraints for a long time now. 
There are so many good nursing homes in our country.  Poor management and crappy hiring practices can result in tragedies such as this one.  I don't understand how no one noticed the smell or that when you walked by this room your eyes began to water, your skin would feel like it was burning??  Nursing home rooms aren't exactly spacious, surely the scent and heavy chemical presence would have saturated this room and leaked out into the hallways and adjacent rooms.

Meth can really make ya ugly.

A bigger problem is that nursing homes are admitting younger patients, who have no discharge plans.  They have no family support, no one to take care of them when they're done with their rehabilitation.  Our country is not equipped to deal with a young, disabled, drug abusing population; housing these people in nursing homes is a poor solution and a disservice to our elderly.
So Amber, what do we do with our young, disabled, drug abusing population that is crowding desperate for funds nursing homes?  Most of these young people are on Medicaid, the nursing homes likely receive $156.17 per day to care for these young people...in most cases that doesn't even cover the cost of the medications they need and the food they eat, let alone the care they're supposed to be receiving.

     



Dear Sarah,

I don't know a lot about meth users.  Or meth rehabilitation.  Or why anyone would ever want to use meth in the first place.

I volunteer at a low barrier homeless shelter every Tuesday night.  Most of our guests are whacked out of their minds when they come to us.  There are other homeless shelters in town, more permanent ones, but you have to be sober to stay there.  Ours has no restrictions and is only open (at rotating churches) during the winter months.  Our only goal is to keep these people from freezing to death.

It makes me happy to help them and provide this service, but it makes me terribly sad that there are so many people that refuse good treatment, because it requires them to quit using first.  That kind of addiction is just something I cannot understand.

Amber,

Nursing homes are not detox facilities.  Neither the staff nor the patients would benefit from active drug users residing in the facility.  Addicts need rehab...if they don't want rehab...maybe they should live on the streets?  Maybe they should be in jail?  I don't have the answer, I just don't want a bunch of drug addicts among my elders.