DISTRICT’S INACTION PUTS LONG-TERM CARE RESIDENTS AT RISK

- Residents’ Advocate Seeks Legal Action -

WASHINGTON, DC –  The DC Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, an advocate for nursing home and community-living facility residents and their families, has taken legal action today to force the District to adopt a Model Transfer and Discharge Plan that the District was required to adopt 17 years ago to protect residents who are discharged, transferred or relocated.  The Ombudsman Program has retained the firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner to bring the lawsuit against the District of Columbia.

The District’s failure to implement a Model Transfer and Discharge Plan jeopardizes the health, safety and legal rights of District residents.  “Transferring nursing home and long-term care residents from substandard or unlicensed facilities is not only disruptive, it is often harmful,” said District of Columbia Long-Term care Ombudsman Gerald Kasunic.  “When the District is forced to close down an unlicensed or negligent facility, it does so with the residents’ best interest in mind. However, residents are hastily moved to any available bed without assurances that their health care needs will be met.” Kasunic adds.

In 1986, the District passed the “Nursing Homes and Community Residence Facilities Residents’ Protection Act”, which required the District to implement a model plan to ensure the safe and orderly transfer, relocation or discharge of residents of long-term care facilities. At that time, the District’s Ombudsman program worked with the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Mayor’s Office to draft a final plan. However, the final plan was never adopted and the city has failed to complete a plan despite repeated requests by advocates.

The Ombudsman Program staff is obligated to track all discharged residents to ensure that their rights are preserved, that they have the proper health care and housing and can thrive in a new facility. 

Kasunic points to one recent situation, in which an area provider illegally moved six residents from a community facility that was about to be closed for licensing violations  into an unlicensed facility that had been closed down a year earlier.  Because the Department of Health had failed to implement a discharge plan, the six illegally transferred residents were moved to other facilities in a haphazard and piecemeal fashion, without coordination among agencies or compliance with their rights.  

In addition, a number of the residents had to be moved a third time because they were placed in inappropriate facilities. The Department of Health was unwilling to assign a relocation team to the facility or to request a court monitor to ensure that the residents had their meals and medication during the six months it took to find residential placements.

Therefore the DC Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program is seeking a court order to force the District to develop and implement a model plan.  “Putting the model plan into action may in the long run save the District money because relocating residents without looking after their best interests may result in legal action from family members or others responsible for the residents’ care.”