Hialeah ALF shuttered by state after dozens of staff, residents sickened with COVID-19
By the time Florida health officials arrived to survey the Salmos 23 V LLC assisted living facility at 240 East Fifth St. in Hialeah last Wednesday, 47 residents had already been hospitalized with COVID-19.
When inspectors got there, they found a facility they deemed woefully unprepared to deal with the highly contagious respiratory virus. One thing inspectors observed: An employee that the facility knew tested positive for the virus was taking the temperatures of other staff members entering the facility while wearing no personal protective equipment.
The inspectors’ initial observation was cited in an emergency order by the state Friday night suspending the facility’s license.
In their survey, health officials reported that all staff members on site had been exposed to the virus and found that Salmos 23 took no action to send them home or switch them out with replacement workers. Instead, state authorities said staff continued to work and serve residents with minimal protection, showing “a general disregard” for health and safety guidelines.
“Due to the facility’s infection history, [Salmos 23] knew or should have known that all staff and residents have been exposed to the virus,” state officials wrote in the order to suspend the facility’s license. “Despite this, there is no evidence that staff or residents were placed in quarantine.”
Inside the facility, inspectors from the Florida Department of Health observed residents crowding next to each other in the television room, with no distancing measures enforced by staff, according to the report attached to the emergency order.
“These failures were not born of ignorance, but intentional despite best practices provided to [Salmos 23],” the order, issued by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, said.
The report went on to describe the facility administrator’s rationale for not isolating all employees, “that the lack of a positive test lessens the risk,” which it said was “in direct conflict with the known risks of asymptomatic community spread and places all residents and staff at unneeded risk of contagion.”
When contacted by the Miami Herald on Sunday, Salmos 23 administrator, Melissa Soriano, said the facility was not currently operating due to AHCA’s suspension order. She declined to answer further questions.
“The only thing that I can comment at the moment is that it’s been an injustice action,” Soriano told the Herald on behalf of the facility’s owner.
The group that owns Salmos 23, Salmos 23 V LLC, also operates a sister facility in the area, Salmos 23 “4” — there have been no known cases associated with that facility.
As of Friday, there have been no deaths tied to either facility, according to state records.
A spokesperson for AHCA said on Sunday that all residents who were staying at Salmos 23 have been transferred to other facilities.
Hialeah officials’ reaction
Jesus Tundidor, a city councilman in Hialeah, called the state’s report on the conditions at the facility “very disturbing.”
“Especially after they identified patients there that were positive, it’s reckless and it’s absurd, and I’m glad AHCA reacted the way that it did,” he said.
Tundidor called for safer conditions at assisted living facilities in Hialeah, which has several, along with numerous nursing homes. He said he hopes to work with ALF associations on a public campaign to ensure staff wear personal protective equipment, and to push for more testing of residents.
“I’m a strong believer that we should move swiftly on testing all of our patients that reside in all these long-term care facilities,” Tundidor said. “We could see a spike [in cases], but we have to identify the issue.”
Assisted living facilities, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been the biggest drivers of COVID-19 deaths in Florida as much of the state begins to reopen. As of Friday, long-term care facilities in South Florida had accounted for 496 deaths, just under half of all COVID-19 deaths in the region.
Data on testing at long-term facilities, which was released by the state under legal pressure by the Miami Herald and other media organizations, showed that Florida has ramped up its testing recently, but Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted recommendations from the White House to make testing of all facilities mandatory.
In mid-April, DeSantis deployed National Guard “strike teams” to test for coronavirus at long-term care facilities. Records released by the Department of Health showed that health officials tested only about 6% of the state’s long-term care facilities between April 11 and May 11.
Hialeah Councilman Oscar De la Rosa said he believes local government should have more authority in the day-to-day operations of nursing homes and ALFs.
“I am disturbed by the reports from AHCA,” De la Rosa said. “I am particularly concerned entering hurricane season and making sure these ALFs are well prepared for what NOAA has stated to be a very aggressive hurricane season.”
A history of violations
The Salmos 23 facility has a history of health and safety violations, including nearly 60 “deficiencies” that Florida authorities identified during one day’s worth of inspections last year.
On July 10 last year, inspectors found five beds were crammed into a room that measured about 25 by 14 feet. That means there was about 70 square feet of space for each resident in the room. One of the residents interviewed said she was never told she’d have to share her room with other people and found it uncomfortable to sleep in.
Some staff applications were found to be incomplete. Several resident documents were missing. Broken floor tiles were covered with pieces of taped cardboard. A part of the dining room ceiling was leaking.
The administrator explained to state inspectors at the time that part of the facility was being remodeled, records show. The facility last changed ownership in April 2019.
Salmos 23 was also found to be unprepared in the case of a hurricane, as the administrator admitted there was no written guideline or plan to have an alternative source of power in case of a blackout. The owner said she had no fuel onsite and had not tested their generator since buying the facility.
AHCA reports from September 2019 show the facility corrected its violations at the time it was re-inspected.
This story was originally published May 24, 2020 at 3:17 PM with the headline "Hialeah ALF shuttered by state after dozens of staff, residents sickened with COVID-19."
