The debacle involving the relocating of over 800 nursing home patients to a warehouse facility in rural Independence, Louisiana are owned by a Baton Rouge operator who has run afoul of regulations before.
The nursing home network owned and operated by Bob Dean.
According to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate Dean’s facilities have been fined after being found states of disrepair and poor patient conditions.
The paper states one patient drowned and another was covered in fire ants.
Dean even evacuated patients to a warehouse once before in 1998 during the approach of Hurricane Georges.
Reportedly the patients were transported in a bus without air-conditioning which may have resulted in the demise of two patients.
At the time Dean did not have required evacuation plans with the Louisiana Department of Health.
The Baton Rouge warehouse where Dean evacuated the patients was in violation of fire codes, lacked sprinklers, fire alarms, emergency lights and other safety systems.
During the initial outbreak of COVID-19, Dean’s Maison Orleans allegedly underreported the number of its patients who died from coronavirus.
The Orleans Parish Coroner stated eight deaths from Maison Orleans, while the facility only reported three.
Maison Orleans was also slow to get staff tested for COVID at a time when the disease was roaring through nursing homes.