Hurricane Irma caused devastation throughout the state, but some of the worst after-effects of the storm may have been preventable. According to investigators, the failure to evacuate a Hollywood Hills nursing home resulted in the deaths of 12 seniors who succumbed to excessive heat exposure and dehydration.
A recent Age Wave study found that while only 37% of people over the age of 50 believe they will need long-term care in the future, approximately 70% of seniors will actually require it. If and when we do require long-term care in assisted living facilities or nursing homes, the expectation is that we will be well taken care of. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case — especially when natural disasters occur.
While federal regulations state that temperatures inside the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills shouldn’t have exceeded 81 degrees Fahrenheit, Hurricane Irma’s destruction of the center’s central AC resulted in a sweltering heat. Temperatures soared to 99 degrees Fahrenheit on the second floor, where at least 10 of the home’s 12 deaths occurred. Four-fifths of all 140 residents suffered from dehydration. And while residents on the first floor were a bit luckier, state health regulators found that 44% of the 71 residents there were dehydrated and showed signs of other heat-related symptoms.
All residents were forced to endure these conditions for 62 hours before the building was finally evacuated. So what went wrong?
Residents and family members allege that nursing home administrators did not adequately prepare for the storm or react properly in the aftermath. In fact, the nursing home’s crisis plan, submitted and approved two months before Irma hit, was filled with typos, errors, and outdated information that was simply copied and pasted from the previous year’s plan. Suits filed by residents and surviving family members claim that the understaffed home didn’t answer residents’ pleas for water, ice, and fans and that those living there were generally “ignored” or “forgotten.” Evidently, the home’s top supervisor, the director of nursing, actually left the facility the day after the hurricane and didn’t return until the residents were evacuated two days later.
State officials argue that “the facility failed to provide appropriate healthcare” and that the facility violated state law by failing to provide “comfortable and safe room temperature levels.” While the nursing home has maintained staff “properly monitored, hydrated, and provided care and comfort for residents” during the power outage and that at no time “were any excessive temperatures experienced in the building,” residents and their families maintain otherwise. So does the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office, which ruled the 12 deaths to be homicides.
A subsequent investigation was launched, and several wrongful death suits have been filed by relatives of the deceased. Around 10% of federal civil personal injury suits filed in 2015 were related to medical neglect, and nursing home negligence suits may be more common these days. According to NursingHomeAbuseGuide.org, more than 2 million cases of elder abuse are reported every year and nearly one out of every 10 seniors will experience elder abuse in some form. And that doesn’t even cover the cases that go unreported.
Unfortunately, nursing home regulations aren’t even being readily enforced, according to a report by the Tampa Bay Times. Although a House committee released recommendations after Irma hit to mandate new criteria for emergency plans, there’s very little involved in the approval process and virtually no follow-up. The general impression: everyone seems to be passing the buck.
Hearings are set to begin in late January pertaining to the Hollywood Hills investigation. Lawsuits are still being filed against the facility, which has since closed.
