Ailing elderly man 'dumped' by Onawa care site

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20140128/NEWS/301280095/Register-Exclusive-Ailing-vet-dumped-by-Onawa-care-site

Jan. 28, 2014
Written by Clark Kauffman

A seriously ill, disabled Navy veteran was evicted from an Iowa nursing home last fall for failure to pay his bill, then was dropped off at an unfurnished apartment with no food, medication or phone.

John Chedester, 65, “ was, for all practical purposes, dumped by the care facility into a vacant apartment,” said David Werning, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals.

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Chedester was suffering from a life-threatening blood infection, congestive heart failure, insulin-dependent diabetes and other ailments when he was dropped off, alone, at an apartment building in Mapleton on Nov. 1, according to state and county records.

The next day, after a neighbor and police intervened, Chedester was rushed by ambulance to a hospital.

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Chedester has since been readmitted to the same nursing home that discharged him to the unfurnished apartment: the Elmwood Care Centre of Onawa. The federal government has fined the western Iowa home a total of $5,752.

Marla Cleghorn, an executive of the home’s Florida-based management company, Trillium Health Care Group, said the company does not condone the manner in which the Elmwood staff handled the situation.

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According to the report, Chedester was removed from his private residence in Ute in July after local police and state social workers determined he could not take care of himself.

“That house was in terrible condition,” Krohn said. “He couldn’t take care of himself, he couldn’t bathe himself or take care of the house. It was just a deplorable state for anyone to be living in. I mean, it was just awful.”

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Sixty days after his admission to Elmwood, the home gave Chedester a letter indicating he was going to be involuntarily discharged — because of nonpayment for services — on Oct. 23.

Cleghorn said Chedester — who showed signs of disorganized thinking, as well as incoherent and illogical, rambling speech — did not cooperate with the staff when they tried to sign him up for Medicaid, which would have paid for his care.

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The Elmwood staff arranged for his placement in the Mapleton apartment building and offered to transport furniture from his house, but he allegedly declined the offer. He also refused home health services, his medications and the bottled oxygen he often relied upon to help him breathe.

The Elmwood staff gave Chedester the phone number of his Department of Human Services case worker, and on Nov. 1, an employee of the home took him to the unfurnished apartment and dropped him off.

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