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An employee at the Wanaque Rehabilitation and Nursing Center described unsanitary conditions and widespread mismanagement in the facility. A viral outbreak claimed the lives of seven children and infected at least 11 others.
The worker stated that conditions in the facility must "play a role" in the epidemic. The employee asked to remain anonymous due to fears of reprisals from the management of the establishment for being expressed.
The state's Department of Health is conducting an investigation into the deadly epidemic of adenovirus earlier this month at Haskell's premises. But as the investigation continued, the worker took a look inside the establishment, which he described as "dirty" .
The descriptions echo those of a mother of a seriously ill one year old child who lived in the Wanaque Center. On Wednesday, she told NJ Advance Media about several months of unhealthy conditions that she said her son was living – including in insect-infested rooms – while he was receiving care in the establishment.
"I have never seen anything like it," said the worker. The worker then described dirty parts, old and rusty equipment, mold, poor maintenance, and officials apparently indifferent to the concerns expressed by the staff for years.
"The facilities are dirty," said the worker. "(There would be) bees sometimes coming into patients' rooms."
The worker stated "either the material is rusty or malfunctioning."
The worker attributes the problems of the plant to the management who settled about four years ago. Since then, said the worker, the focus has been on reducing costs and reducing staff as much as possible.
In 2014, the Wanaque Center was taken over by Continuum Healthcare LLC of Marlton, which operates six other facilities in New Jersey and at least two in Pennsylvania.
The Wanaque Center is a 227-bed, for-profit facility with a pediatric unit for medically-fragile children, who often require ongoing monitoring and treatment.
In its latest health inspection report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rated the establishment as "below average". The 2017 report indicated that the facility "failed to ensure that infection control practices were followed."
The worker said the state health officials visited the premises in August and told the staff that a carpet should be removed immediately due to its dirty condition.
The carpet remained, said the worker.
The worker further stated that facility officials seemed to be concerned about cleanliness only when they knew that health officials were being inspected.
"(These patients) deserve to be cured," added the worker. "They do not even receive a quarter of what they pay for."
Rowena Bautista, director of the Wanaque Center, told NJ Advance Media that the facility "immediately warned all relevant government agencies that the virus had been identified."
A Philadelphia-based media relations firm released a statement on behalf of the facility late Thursday afternoon: "Our thoughts are with families and loved ones affected by this tragedy."
However, the company did not respond to the allegations of the worker who had spoken with NJ Advance Media.
The statement added that the institution has taken "a number of key steps to support this grieving community and our families," including providing bereavement counseling to anyone affected and "working side by side". coast with medical experts from the Ministry of Health and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and will be in constant contact with them until this problem is fully resolved. "
Spencer Kent can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the NJ.com site on Facebook.
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