White Settlement nursing home fined after resident found ‘covered’ with ant bites
A woman recovering from COVID-19 in a White Settlement nursing home woke up in the middle of the night with something crawling across her body.
She was covered in ants.
The woman, who was paralyzed on her right side and had dementia, was moved to another nursing home the next day, on Sept. 11, 2021.
Pus pockets covered much of her body: her arms, her breast, her neck, her side, and her thigh, according to an infection control investigation into West Side Campus of Care. Three days later, when the woman was admitted to a hospital because her blood pressure kept dropping, an emergency room doctor said “the ant bites were infected and she would need wound care to treat them.” It is unknown whether the woman’s change in condition was related to the fire ants.
Inspection records of West Side Campus of Care, at 1950 S. Las Vegas Trail, identified the ant infestation as the most serious and dangerous of multiple problems identified at the nursing home over the last several years.
The investigation began after a worker at the second nursing home noticed the woman’s ant bites and reported the situation to state and federal regulators. The September investigation was the latest in a string of complaints and violations that investigators have found at the White Settlement nursing home in the last several years.
The Star-Telegram obtained the inspection records and the nursing home’s plans to address violations from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission through an open records request.
The most serious violations, including the ant infestation, resulted in the federal government fining the home thousands of dollars. The nursing home has been address each violation and submit a plan to avoid similar issues in the future to regulators.
The ant infestation was so bad that the nursing home was cited for putting residents at “immediate jeopardy” of harm of death, the most serious violation a nursing home can face under federal regulations. The immediate jeopardy citation was lifted on Sept. 16, one day after it was initially filed.
West Side Campus of Care is owned by Coryell County Memorial Hospital Authority, north of Killeen. It is managed by a company called Settlement Healthcare LLC, which is registered to operate in Texas and has a business address in New Jersey. The CEO of the hospital authority did not respond to requests for comment. Settlement Healthcare also did not respond to requests for comment. The nursing home is not currently in violation of any state or federal rules.
More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, residents of nursing homes and their loved ones continue to ask for more staffing, more care, and safer conditions. COVID-19 has proved especially deadly for nursing home residents, who are great risk for serious disease and death from the virus because of their age, underlying conditions, and because they live in an enclosed, congregate living space, where the virus spreads easily from person to person. Across the United States, residents and staff in long-term care facilities have made up almost one in every four COVID-19 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Patty Ducayet, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, said the vulnerable condition of some residents is important to keep in mind in cases of infection control problems like ants.
“Depending on residents’ condition and their ability to express pain or be able to speak about what’s happening, that adds a layer of complexity,” Ducayet said. “And someone who is immobile is completely dependent on other people would be someone should have frequent visual checks of their skin.”
A ‘distraught’ family, hundreds of bites, and fines
After the ant infestation was reported and investigated the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the nursing home paid two federal fines totaling $63,250.
The woman was already scheduled to move to another home when she woke up covered in ants, according to the investigator’s report. A social worker at the new home said the woman was “covered with what looked like hundreds of pus filled fire ant bites on her right arm” and that the woman’s family was “distraught.”
A second resident was also attacked by the ants. Ant bites were found on her shoulder and her left elbow, and later a nurse said she had “little pustules” on her left arm.
The investigator concluded that West Side Campus of Care “failed to maintain an effective pest control program.”
As is the case with all nursing home inspections, none of the residents or staff was identified by name or personal details in the inspection report.
Previous inspections identified additional concerns at the nursing home, which is licensed for 234 beds. An investigation completed in April 2021 concluded that the nursing home had failed to clean two residents’ oxygen concentrators, leaving them “visibly dusty.”
In 2019, an investigator concluded that the home failed to keep a resident safe after three staff members did not notify her doctor when she fell and continued to complain of pain for two days. After the resident ultimately received an X-ray, health workers found she had suffered two leg fractures.
“These failures placed the residents at risk for serious bodily harm, permanent physical impairment and issues with pain,” according to the report.
West Side Campus of Care was fined $27,685 after that investigation.
Staffing woes continue
One of the most immediate needs for most nursing home residents is more staff to care for them, Ducayet said.
In her role as ombudsman, Ducayet acts as an independent advocate for nursing home residents. She said increased staffing, and increased wages to pay those staff, would go a long way toward keeping residents safer.
“A lot of our nurse aides do not get a living wage in Texas,” she said. “Facilities have to be willing to make less money at the top levels and put that back into the staffing that will make quality of care better.”
Federal records show the nursing home is grappling with additional challenges, like not having enough staff to care for residents and low rate of resident vaccination against COVID-19.
On average, the facility cares for about 169 patients in a day, according to the federal government, a number far higher than the state and national averages. On average, the home’s registered nurses can spend 20 minutes per resident per day, a number that’s less than half the national average of 42 minutes.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
