Advocates: Return South Blossom residents

The state Department of Health is reviewing a letter from nursing home advocates that calls on the acting health commissioner to transfer back to Monroe County more than a dozen former Blossom South residents who were placed in a nursing home in Utica.

Ken Traub and Janet Gelein, co-chairs of Elder Justice committee of Metro Justice, and about a dozen supporters delivered the letter Monday morning to the Rochester office and asked that it be faxed to acting commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.

The group had wanted to meet with a department employee, but a security guard took the envelope and said he would make sure it got to the right people.

The letter asked Zucker to investigate the way in which residents from Blossom South were transferred to facilities outside of Monroe County, when it appeared there were empty beds in local nursing homes.

Blossom South closed in the spring after the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ended the contract that reimbursed for the care of eligible residents.

"The Department of Health should have found out what the plan was in more detail and they should have worked with county nursing home owners and managers to make sure (residents) were placed in Monroe County," Traub said. "We felt that was the right thing to do. You're supposed to place people from a closed nursing home close to where they came from. They didn't do so."

The letter specifically referred to 17 residents that were moved Blossom South to Heritage Health Care Center in Utica and who want to return to Monroe County. The letter said that at the time of the placement, there were more than 350 vacant beds in Monroe County nursing homes. The letter said the state health department has "an unfulfilled moral obligation to bring (residents) back and to convince Monroe County nursing home administrators and owners to accept them."

According to a statement from the Department of Health: "Since the closure of Blossom South Nursing Home, the New York State Department of Health's (DOH) priority remains the safety and well-being of the former residents of Blossom South. To date, several former Blossom South residents have been transferred to other health care facilities within Monroe County. DOH continues to work with the nursing homes outside of Monroe County that accepted former Blossom South residents who wish to return to Monroe County."

Traub said there currently are more than 250 vacant beds in Monroe County nursing homes. But it is difficult to get an accurate count. The homes are supposed to report to the state each week on the number of occupied beds. But the information is self-reported, not audited and not all homes report every week.

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