NJ Nursing Home Where 83 Residents Died of COVID Still in Business Under a New Name – NBC 7 San Diego

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In December 2019, Sharon Farrell flew from Florida to visit her brother Stephen at a nursing home in New Jersey, where she found “disgusting” conditions. “I said to the nurse, ‘I’ll call the state,'” she said. “I pay $ 9,000 a month and I wouldn’t let my dog ​​live like this.”

He died four months later of COVID-19, which quickly spread around the facility and claimed at least 83 lives. It has been 19 months since 17 bodies were discovered in a tiny morgue at the Andover Subacute II nursing home in Sussex County, New Jersey, in April 2020 – prosecutors opened an investigation.

But the owners are still in business. They changed the names of Andover and its sister facility and put new signs in front of the door. As of Friday, 25 Andover residents were infected with COVID-19, according to the state.

And the owners are still being paid by Medicare and Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded programs that bear most of the costs for U.S. nursing home operators – though one of the owners, Louis Schwartz, helped run a chain called Skyline Healthcare, which is in the thick of it in 2019 collapsed allegations of neglect and financial mismanagement that the chain denied.

In a statement, the owners of Andover, now known as Woodland Behavioral, said that “the safety and health of our residents has always been a top priority for Woodland Behavioral,” adding, “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges, and ours heroic employees faced these challenges as best they could. We continue to thank them for all they have done (and continue to do) to protect our residents. “

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com.

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