North Carolina Nursing Home Severely Understaffed Leading To Deaths
A North Carolina nursing home was extremely understaffed Sunday night with only 3 employees on-site. Police officers were called to the Pine Ridge Health and Rehabilitation Center in Thomasville just before 8 pm Sunday night. Calls began to come in to officials alerting them that staff couldn’t be reached by phone and that some residents hadn’t seen staff at the location.
Unfortunately, two residents were found deceased and two others were discovered to be in critical conditions. The causes of death is still unknown. The lack of staff is mainly attributed to the poor road conditions from Winter Storm Izzy.
According to WBTW News 13 Pine Ridge sent out a call to families of residents blaming the storm for the nursing home being understaffed. The call, which was recorded by one family member said:
“This is a courtesy call from Pine Ridge. We just wanted to make sure that you were aware that during the night shift on … January 16th, we had scheduled a full staff, but due to inclement weather, some of the folks were not able to come in. As a result, Davidson County Emergency Management assisted us with staff during those shifts to ensure provision of care. Today’s staff has been able to get to work in ensuring the residents’ needs are met continually.”
The incident is currrently being investigated by multiple agencies including The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, and Davidson County Social Services.
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