No hot water, no working stove, barely enough food at troubled N.J. nursing home, state says

Residents at a South Jersey nursing home were not able take a shower for months because the facility’s boiler was not working and there was no hot water.
They weren’t fed enough food because of unpaid grocery bills and the stove was not working.
And the person in charge had not been seen there for months, investigators charged.
The New Jersey Health Department, in a major enforcement action, has suspended all admissions to the Medford Care Center in Burlington County, citing a long list of violations that will require the owners to immediately hire a consultant to run the facility and a dietary consultant to monitor weekly the weight of the 93 residents living there, according to letters from the health department.
If the center does not hire the consultants and repair the faulty boiler by 6 p.m. on Monday, the state will suspend Medford Care Center’s license, the letter issued late Friday said.
Richard Pineles, Medford’s owner and administrator, whom the state believes has been absent from the facility for about six months, has restarted full food deliveries, health department spokeswoman Dalya Ewais said.
Pineles told NJ Advance Media late Monday that many of the state’s findings are exaggerated or simply not true. He said not only had food vendors been paid, “We have always had three-days supply of food,” a state requirement. “We get food deliveries every week. I don’t know where they came up with that.”
Pineles acknowledged the boiler has been a problem since August, but they were managing by not washing clothes while residents were taking showers. “Six months of no bathing? That patently untrue,” he said.
“It has not been perfect, but we are taking care of the residents. We have a very dedicated staff in the building,” Pineles said, noting the faciity has been owned by his family for more than four decades.
The action by the state came after inspections last week led to the declaration of “immediate jeopardy,” citing the safety and quality of life of residents. Among the state’s findings:
The surveyors also found that the paychecks of multiple employees had bounced and that while those checks have since cleared, some employees were still waiting for reimbursement from the facility for the resulting bank fees.
As a result of the violations, state officials found that residents in the facility were at an “immediate and serious risk of harm.”
Even after the violations notice, some of the problems were still not corrected over the weekend, the state said.
“The facility has still not sufficiently addressed issues with water and the other orders. If the boiler is not fixed by Monday, the Department has notified the facility that further enforcement actions will be taken,” Ewais said. “Department of Health staff have been onsite every day to ensure residents are safe and will continue to be there until the issues are adequately addressed.”
Pineles said the required consultants would be on-site later this week, and the plumber has been hired to fix the boiler.
“We do have things under control. It’s a clean building, fully stocked. It doesn’t look like anything like” what is described in the state letters, he said.
“There are two sides to every story,” Pineles said.
The state Health Department has increased its vigilance of nursing homes since the coronavirus pandemic killed more than 9,693 residents and 143 employees, and exposed longstanding problems with staffing shortages, aging and obsolete facilities and infection control. Laws passed in the wake of the first wave of the coronavirus required the health department to enforce new staffing quotas for certified nursing aides and to look for signs that nursing homes are in financial trouble.
These and other red flags have been present for at least four months at the Medford Care Center, which is licensed for 180 beds, according to the health department letters.
The facility had stopped paying its energy bills. In July, the local health department contacted the state to say PSEG had sent a shut-off notice because the facility owed $145,000. The power stayed on and the facility entered into a payment plan in October.
The health department also cited Medford in July for failing to maintain the proper staff-to-resident ratios for two consecutive weeks.
Inspectors also found the stove was inoperable, following a fire in May. Pineles acknowledged that the stove was broken, and a replacement didnt work. But he said the oven was operable, and convection ovens are also used to prepare hot meals.
Medford officials cited five reasons for their financial instability, according to a July 31 letter to the state: “a lower census, staffing agency costs, increases in staffing pay in an effort to eliminate the use of staffing agencies, significant increases in the cost of supplies and a low Medicaid reimbursement rate.”
Lawsuits reviewed by NJ Advance Media found the Medford Center had allegedly owed its plumbing contractor $40,000 to fix the facility’s boiler which has not been paid, and was also allegedly in arrears for thousands more owed to an outside staffing agency, court filings show.
Rated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as just 2-stars, or “below average,” Medford’s last full health inspection in 2023 garnered just 1-star, or “much below average” in the CMS 5-star ratings.
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Susan K. Livio may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
Ted Sherman may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL