JOHNSTOWN, Ohio โ As the years went by, residents in this Licking County village began to notice a change in their local nursing home. The patients werenโt just elderly people anymore. Some were young. Some were loud. Some were angry.
โAn amazing amount of cursing and rude, bad behavior,โ was the impression of Scott Campbell, who visits his 87-year-old father almost daily at the Northview Senior Living Center.
It wasnโt just their imagination. In the past four years, Northview, operated by Zanesville-based Zandex Health Care Corp., has taken on an increasing number of residents with behavioral problems to fill its 58 beds. The shift has village residents worried about who might be living at the center, which sits across N. Main Street from a day-care center and a public library.
โI canโt tell you the number of people Iโve seen jump the fence,โ said Ruth Ann Booher, whose mother lived at Northview until she died in June.
Last night, residents aired their concerns while Zandex defended itself at a meeting of the villageโs planning and zoning commission. The villageโs zoning inspector, Jim Blair, sent Northview notice on June 27 that by accepting patients with behavioral problems it was violating a permit that it had been granted in 1988 to expand the center.
Blairโs letter said the nursing home didnโt have โthe proper zoning to conduct behavioral health treatment … and must be stopped.โ
Zandex officials appealed on July 19. They argue that theyโre not doing anything new and havenโt violated any zoning restrictions.
โWeโre not sure where the (village) council is coming from,โ said Lyle Clark, chief financial officer for Zandex. โThere are very few facilities now that donโt take behavior residents. … We havenโt changed anything from the way weโre doing business.โ
As its number of elderly patients has dwindled, Northview has begun taking in more residents with behavioral problems of all ages, Clark told the commission last night. In fact, a state investigation spurred by a complaint from Booher found that 22 of Northviewโs 50 residents had behavioral issues โ and the center hadnโt adequately trained its staff to care for those residents. Furthermore, it found that the center had reported 12 altercations among residents so far in 2012.
Zandex officials say theyโve responded to the state citation with increased training. But Johnstown residents arenโt convinced.
โItโs hard to get all the details,โ said Booher, who discovered during one visit that her mother had a mark on her face and was missing several back teeth. She never learned what had happened.
Clouding the debate, too, are the memories of the short-lived escape of John โJeffโ Stroud, 53, from a nursing home in nearby Heath. He was staying there despite being charged with attempted murder in Scioto County. Stroudโs stay in Heath was a condition of his bond, but few people, including the cityโs mayor and police chief, knew he was there.
No one outside of Northview knows who is staying there, either, although police havenโt reported any major problems with the center. Johnstown police have been called there five times in two years.
The commissioners are set to make a final decision in the matter at their Sept. 19 meeting.
From: Dispatch.com