Local News
Feds Find Long List of Failures in Northview Village’s Sudden Closure | St. Louis

[ad_1]
click to enlarge GOOGLE EARTH SCREENSHOT Northview Village, the area’s largest nursing home, was located St. Louis’ Kingsgway West neighborhood.
Northview Village, St. Louis’ largest skilled nursing facility, made headlines in the New York Times, Washington Post and other national media when it closed abruptly in mid-December.
The frantic transfer of 174 residents — many with only the clothes on their backs — to other care centers in the middle of the night led to emotional breakdowns, the disappearance for days of some residents and heart-wrenching efforts by family members to reunite with loved ones.
That’s according to the first official look at the events preceding and following Northview Village’s sudden closure on the evening of December 15.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a scathing 59-page report today that found fault with the facility’s top administrators. The report was based on extensive interviews with nursing home administrator Sherry Brockmeyer, other staffers and Matt Furgerson, the chief financial officer of Healthcare Accounting Services, which operated Northview Village.
Nursing home entrepreneur Maklhouf Suissa, who was the largest shareholder in the company that co-owned Northview with Hunter Management and Care Centers, did not return calls seeking comment.
The “Statement of Deficiencies” issued by Health & Human Services, or HHS, contains a blow-by-blow account of the decision-making in the crucial hours before and after Northview’s abrupt closure, as the owners refused to infuse more cash into the operation. The report suggests that decision was the result of an impasse between Suissa and his business partner, Eric Rothner, who is linked to more than a dozen nursing facilities in Illinois.
In an email sent at 2:27 p.m. on December 15, the day of the closure, Furgerson told Brockmeyer, the facility administrator, “After a long fight to get the ownership to fund Northview’s continuing losses, I, nor [Suissa] have been able to get funds from the other part of the ownership group for Northview. [Suissa] is not able to fund this as he has exhausted everything he has from funding his homes for so long.”
Furgerson added, “I am not sure what to say as I had many solutions to get us through our cash flow issues, but I do not have a solution this week. I spoke to [Suissa] and he suggested that you give employees [in Rothner’s] office information as we were expecting funds from him and he is not budging.” The report adds, “During an interview on 12/15/23 at 3:45 p.m., the Administrator [Brockmeyer] said Owner A [Suissa] refused to pay staff, and said he did not have the money. The CFO [Furgerson] told the Administrator to contact Owner B [Rothner] to get the money for payroll. The administrator stated it was payday, and people were walking off shift.” In addition, “The CFO told the Administrator to transfer as many residents as possible to Facility B and Facility C [under ownership of Suissa]. At 4:50 p.m., the Administrator [Brockmeyer] said their emergency preparedness plan had been enacted,” according to the report.
The report did not assign blame to Suissa or his business partners in Northview Village’s sudden closure and the chaos that followed.
However, the HSS report found that Northview Village staff failed to:
Develop and implement emergency preparedness policies
Follow procedures for the safe evacuation of residents
Coordinate an orderly and safe evacuation of residents. In addition, residents were moved in the middle of the night without their medical records, medications, personal possessions and without their family, guardians and next of kin being informed.
What’s more, Northview did not have effective means of communication when the facility phone lines did not work. Facility records of where residents relocated to were incomplete. The facility failed to take measures to ensure security of the residents and staff during the evacuation, and failed to secure resident belongings from theft.
The report’s authors concluded: “The failures jeopardized the health and safety for all residents and staff.”
During a rally earlier this month outside Brentwood-based Healthcare Accounting Services, which Suissa also owns and which operated the facility, more than 180 laid-off Northview Village workers said they still have not been paid wages for time worked. The facility administrators owe them for banked PTO, union dues and health insurance payments, according to the Service Employees International Union, which represents the workers.
In an interview with state investigators on December 17, Furgerson told federal investigators that Northview Village “has been losing money for years and Owner A [Suissa] has been funding losses. Two financial backers, including Owner C, were asked to help cover the payroll, however, they did not do so. The facility would receive their Medicaid reimbursement check that week and they should be able to pay employees. Most of the facility’s 170+ residents were Medicaid recipients.”
In April 2020, the federal government awarded a Paycheck Protection Program loan worth $1,970,487 to the partnership group that ran Northview Village Nursing Home, the Riverfront Times reported last week.
Northview Village was fined 12 times for federal violations since March 2021, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Fines totaled more than $140,000 and ranged from $2,200 to more than $45,000.
The following year, federal regulators awarded Northview its lowest rating, a single star — “much below average” — on a five-star rating system, citing the facility for severe staff shortages.
Regulators also documented two abuse and neglect complaints at Northview, and nine quality of life complaints, resulting in eight separate fines totalling $86,373, Medicare records show.
The Chicago Tribune reported in May 2020 that two New Jersey nursing homes where at least 66 people had died of COVID-19 — one of the country’s worst such outbreaks — were connected to the Rothner family, which holds ownership stakes in more than a dozen Illinois facilities.
Sharon Tyus, the Ward 12 alderman who represents the district where Northview is located, has already authored a resolution calling for the Board of Aldermen to conduct its own investigation into Northview’s closure.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misidentified the owners and administrators weighing in on Northview’s closure. We have since updated the story to identify the correct people, including Matt Furgerson, the chief financial officer of Healthcare Accounting Services. We regret the error.
Mike Fitzgerald can be reached at [email protected]
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

[ad_1]
A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.
Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.
The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.
The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.
This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.
As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

[ad_1]
Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.
“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”
He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”
The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”
Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”
The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.
Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”
In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.
“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”
Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”
Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.
“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.
Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)
One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.
Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.
“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

[ad_1]
The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.
The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.
The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.
The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.
To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/
“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
-
Politics11 months ago
Prenzler ‘reconsidered’ campaign donors, accepts vendor funds
-
Business2 years ago
Fields Foods to open new grocery in Pagedale in March
-
Board Bills2 years ago
2022-2023 Board Bill 168 — City’s Capital Fund
-
Business2 years ago
We Live Here Auténtico! | The Hispanic Chamber | Community and Connection Central
-
Entertainment2 years ago
St.Louis Man Sounds Just Like Whitley Hewsten, Plans on Performing At The Shayfitz Arena.
-
Board Bills6 months ago
2024-2025 Board Bill 80 — Prohibiting Street Takeovers
-
Board Bills2 years ago
2022-2023 Board Bill 189 — Public Works and Improvement Program at the Airport
-
Local News2 years ago
VIDEO: St. Louis Visitor Has Meltdown on TikTok Over Gunshots