Nursing home woes

ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - On Monday, Newschannel 3 reported about an Allegan County nursing home that could be losing its license.

New information has been released Tuesday, that shows it might not have to close. Tuesday, the state told Newschannel 3 that it's looking for someone to by Metron's facility. A new buyer could keep that home operating.

If that home continued to operate, it would certainly help all those families from having to scramble and look for a new home for their loved ones.

Newschannel 3 was out in Allegan to bring you the story.

Residents and their families were set to meet with officials at Metron of Allegan Tuesday afternoon about possibly relocating their loved ones, this meeting as the state set a meeting of its own with Metron for Wednesday to continue discussing a potential buyer.

Still, the facility is dealing with citations and a hearing to see if its license should be revoked. If that happens and the facility closes it will certainly strain other local nursing homes that are already filled up.

There is a site near Kalamazoo that will be home to the first new nursing home built in Kalamazoo county in 20 years. For an industry that's seen volume grow, the fact that new homes haven't been built proves that capacity hasn't grown with it.

Bart Carrel runs Borgess' nursing home, he said "we're responding to what the next generation of people wanting nursing home care would like to have in a nursing home, the privacy, the dignity, the non-institutional nursing home."

While Carrel thinks there are probably enough beds in West Michigan for all those who need care, there aren't enough beds that are convenient for families that want to be close to their loved ones.

The state probably isn't going to increase the number of beds since a majority of nursing home patients are on Medicare and Medicaid, and the state can't really spend any more money.

"Nursing home care is expensive, bottom line it's a cost control measure," said Carrel.

Metron of Allegan is facing a number of citations and the possibility of losing its license. If it closes it would force residents to relocate.

"Generally each nursing home is able to take a few residents, but we are limited to how many we can take," Carrel said, "it does put the residents and families of that nursing home in a bind."

Clients of Metron of Allegan that Newschannel 3 spoke too said that they are already looking into other options. But Bart Carrel knows that convenient nursing homes are becoming harder to find.

On Monday the Michigan Department of Community Health said that Metron was cited 11 times. It also had its Medicare and Medicaid coverage taken away after failing to comply with regulations.

The State told Newschannel 3 that many of the 11 citations were of a very serious nature.

A spokesperson from the Michigan Department of Community Health told Newschannel 3 that the most serious issue at Metron in Allegan was failure to carry out a doctor's order for oxygen for two residents. The patients didn't get the oxygen and the state says they subsequently died.

The Michigan Department of Community Health also told Newschannel 3 that the nursing home didn't thoroughly investigate when a resident left the facilty without notice, and that the facility failed to report alleged abuse where residents got physical with each other.

It's these serious allegations that originally prompted the state to look at revoking the facility's license.

James McCurtis, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Community Health said that "it's not common for every nursing home, but when it gets to a situation where a nursing home could lose their license you will see incidents that might be similar in nature, because again our job is to protect residents and if needed start the process of revoking the license of a home."

Newschannel 3 tried to contact the nursing home's attorney. As of Tuesday, our calls had not been answered.