The Criminal Horror of St. Rita's Nursing Home, Part II

While the lawyer for the nursing home claims that the owners were waiting for a mandatory evacuation before moving those patients, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

What was the status of the evacuation order as the storm approached. What steps should and were taken by the nursing home and local authorities. Did they think that the other would be taking care of the patients? The local authorities did come by to offer assistance in moving the patients to higher ground, but the owners said they had things under control.

Bloomberg has more.

Bernard Parish coroner Bryan Bertucci said last week that he called nursing home owner Mable Mangano during a Parish Council meeting at 2 p.m. on Aug. 28, a day before the storm. He said he asked her why she hadn't followed the evacuation plan she filed with the parish and removed her patients to Baton Rouge and Lafayette on the two buses set aside for them.

``The sad thing is that these people ran a pretty good nursing home,'' St. Bernard Parish Fire Chief Thomas Stone said in an interview. The owners ``just made one mistake.''

For those that don't know, this nursing home was actually on one of the state's official evacuation routes. Highway 46 runs directly adjacent to the nursing home and the home's address is given as Highway 46. The nursing home was in an excellent location in order to be evacuated in a timely basis. And yet, it was never properly evacuated before the storm, and efforts to move patients to higher ground once the storm hit was doomed to failure.

Here are the evacuation route maps Also, here's the parish evacuation plan.

Thus far, what is missing is how the state and local authorities are supposed to deal with evacuating hospitals and nursing facilities in the path of an oncoming storm and particularly those who aren't moving their patients to higher ground. These patients should be among the first moved out of the way of the impending storm - they are the ones least likely to survive a storm once it hits and power is lost, resources are slow to arrive, etc. Getting them to higher ground is better than hoping that you can ride out the storm in place.

Going forward, authorities must do a better job of evacuating patients from these facilities before storms hit so that they can protect the lives of those patients. The emergency plans must do a better job of clarifying when and where these facilities should be evacuated. This should essentially boil down to the following - if an evacuation has been called in your area - patients should be evacuated to the nearest safe haven.

In this instance, the owners should have known to get their patients to higher ground, especially after the phone call from the Coroner's office asking why the nursing home wasn't following their filed evacuation plan and utilizing the buses at their disposal, let alone the buses offered by the Parish.

Then, there's the Andrew Broussard angle. Broussard is the Jefferson Parish, LA president who made several emotional pleas on national television recounting the events surrounding the death of one of the patients at St. Rita's. From the 9/4/05 Meet The Press:

"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in a St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.""

Katrina hit August 29. The nursing home was flooded out on the 29th. The victim in question was the 92 year old mother of Thomas Rodrigue, who told Dateline that his 92-year-old mother was one of 32 elderly people found dead at the St. Rita’s nursing home. Meanwhile, Parish officials say that the victims all died on the 29th. As per NYT, and other media reports.

Wuzzadem suggests that political opportunism is at the heart of Broussard's claims. At this point, Broussard is suspect, and his behavior can be explained by political opportunism in the same vein as Nagin and Blanco.


See also:
The Criminal Horror of St. Rita's Nursing Home
The Horror at St. Rita's Nursing Home

UPDATE:
The LA Attorney General is examining additional claims against other La. hospitals and nursing homes to determine if additional criminal charges should be filed.

Did everyone forget that in case of a hurricane that you get everyone out of the way, including those in hospitals, nursing homes, and other similar facilities?

The Louisiana attorney general's office said all of its investigators have been pulled from other tasks to work on the Medicaid Fraud Unit, the team whose work led to homicide charges Tuesday against the husband-and-wife owners of the flooded-out St. Rita's nursing home in Chalmette.

Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles Foti, said the office is looking into other allegations of neglect that may have led to injuries or deaths at nursing homes and hospitals.

"Reports are flooding in. It just depends on what's legitimate and what is not," Wartelle said Wednesday.

Here's AG Foti's press release on the surrender of the owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home:

... [The] owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish surrendered to Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Investigators in Baton Rouge today at 3:00 p.m. in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. St. Rita’s Nursing Home is located in Violet, Louisiana in St. Bernard Parish.

Mable B. Mangano, who is listed as both an owner and administrator and Salvador A. Mangano, Sr., listed as a co-owner, were arrested and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison as fugitives. Mable Mangano and Salvador Mangano, Sr., are each charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide.