A 43-year old resident of a long-term care facility in Seymour died at Columbus Regional Hospital earlier this month, and Seymour Police and the state's Adult Protective Services are now trying to determine if neglect by his caretakers led to his death. Seymour Crossing is one of nearly 60 long-term care facilities in Indiana, which is owned by the Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County and operated by American Senior Communities.
Call 6's Kara Kenney quotes state investigators as saying the death of Timothy Lee Johnson on October 11 is considered a criminal matter. The Seymour Police Department is still in the process of interviewing witnesses. According to Police Chief Jon Rohde, his department was notified by hospital officials that Johnson appeared to be the victim of severe neglect. Jerrie Keck, an administrator at Seymour Crossing told Kenney there was no neglect, although she acknowledged an ongoing investigation.
Last January, an elderly female patient at a southside Indianapolis nursing home owned by HHC, Bethany Village, suffered severe burns when a fire inexplicably broke out in her room. She was transferred to the burn unit at Eskenazi Hospital in critical condition. Local news reports ignored the fact that it was one of the many nursing homes acquired by HHC as part of its scheme to leverage enhanced Medicaid reimbursement payments to finance construction of the new, $750 million Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis. There were no follow-up news reports on the cause of the fire or whether the facility was being investigated by the state for neglect. Last year, a report by WTHR's Sandra Chapman found that at least half of HHC's nursing homes were ranked below average or much below average. HHC's nursing homes collectively generate about $545 million for the municipal corporation, which is run more like a mega for-profit corporation with the exorbitant salaries it pays to dozens of top executives than a county-owned charitable hospital.
4 comments:
Why does our Health & Hospital Corporation own a facility in Seymour?????
That exceeds their mission!!!
Marion County is TAXED to create & fund it's H&HC, and it has no business in any other county.
And why then does Indianapolis EMS struggle so mightily to generate enough operating revenue on their own to provide PUBLIC SAFETY to Marion County? Seems to me there is plenty of $$ to properly fund IEMS and give them the equipment and manpower they need to provide service to the taxpayers.
Good point, anon. 11:53. Lots of public dollars being squandered for less than good purposes. That new hospital should have never been built. Send the money to the existing hospitals to take care of the indigent. We already had plenty of supposed nonprofit hospitals before Eskenazi was built.
Corruption on this deal has been apparent for many years as published by many and the fact that it continues without convictions and more speaks volumes of the layers of pay to players. Done.
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