(Cell Phone Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
An embattled assisted living and memory care center in Kenosha, Parkside Manor, found itself in hot water, only 17 months after alleged neglect resulted in a deceased elderly woman.
In a scathing 20-page report authored by the WIsconsin Department of Health Services, terrible mistakes are pointed out, such as hundreds of missing doses of medication, unblocked medicine storage containers, and food preparation/service deficiencies. One residents blood sugar spiked into the 300’s and 400s during a time when she/he wasn’t given the proper diabetes medication. Multiple residents, referred to as numbers in the report, didn’t get their needed medication for a prolonged period of time.
The report also said the the medication was not locked as required, noting:
“Based on observation and interview, the provider did not ensure 2 of 2 medication rooms were locked at all times. The medication closet on the secured memory care side, was unlocked, and contained resident medications on a shelf. The medication closet on the assisted living side was unlocked. The medication closet contained a refrigerator, which was not locked and contained resident stored medications. This had the potential to affect 41 of 41 residents residing in the facility.”
The report also noted much medication that was expired, but still given to residents.
KCE reached out out the Wisconsin agency. Elizabeth Goodsitt, Communications Specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services issued the following statement to KCE:
“Enforcement actions by the Division of Quality Assurance (DQA) typically allow the licensee to correct any violations, with the goal of improved compliance. That said, our enforcement actions are progressive, and correction must occur or subsequent enforcement actions will result in additional sanctions and penalties against the facility. When violations are extensive, repeated, or egregious, or when other sanctions have proven ineffective, license revocation is at times the best assurance for resident safety and protection. Nonetheless, if a facility corrects the violations and is able to achieve and sustain compliance with the requirements, revocation may not be the most appropriate sanction. Many residents are vulnerable due to their medical conditions, frailties, and physical, psychological, or cognitive disabilities. Relocation can be traumatic and detrimental for residents and this is an important consideration made by DHS.
As a result of SOD UJZS11 issued June 17, 2024, the facility has 45 days to correct the violations internally. The Bureau of Assisted Living may, without notice, conduct a verification visit after 45 days to review the facility’s action to correct the violations. Failure to correct the violations could result in additional sanctions. Sanctions may include paying a forfeiture or increased forfeiture, being unable to admit new residents, having a plan of correction created by DHS, having a license suspended, or losing a license.”
KCE contacted Encore Senior Living, the parent company of Parkside Manor and just like when the elderly woman died due to alleged neglect, they didn’t care to respond.
Parkside Manor must pay a forfeiture of $1,525.00. If they agree not to appeal the notice and order, they only have to pay $991.25. KCE stopped by the facility today to speak with Lee Hozey, the facility’s administrator. She was not available to speak to.
KCE also contacted Kenosha Police to see if these violations were being investigated as possible criminal violations and KPD did not respond.
Incident From December, 2022
On December 12, 2023, a Kenosha woman, her daughter and a Racine man were all been charged in connection with the December 18, 2022 death of an 89-year-old woman. The woman was a resident of Parkside Manor, a residential facility located at 6300 67th St in Kenosha. According to the chief medical examiner, Dr. Wieslawa Tlomak, the woman died of hypothermia due to environmental cold exposure. The autopsy findings took an abnormally long amount of time, becuase the toxicology results weren’t available until approximately September 13, 2023 – almost a year after the death.
The woman was found deceased by Kenosha Police on December 18, 2022 at approximately 7:45 am outside of the facility on the sidewalk. Demontae M. Collins, 35, of Racine, WI, Susan Valentin, 40, of Kenosha, WI, and her daughter, Liliana B. Lozano, 20, of Racine, WI were all charged on Wednesday December 6, 2023 with one count of Recklessly Abusing a Patient, Causing Death, a class C felony. If convicted, the trio face up to 40 years in the Wisconsin Prison system.
According to the criminal complaint, all three defendants actions and inactions all played a role in the woman’s death. Routine checks were not performed, alarms were ignored and silenced, and at least two of the defendants left the building for long periods of time, leaving the other two alone with all of the patients for the graveyard shift. Collins, allegedly left the facility for a couple of hours at a time.
“[Kenosha Police] Detective Correa reported that based on this investigation and statements, a number of policies and safeguards for the residents were not followed. Defendant Valentin and defendant Lozano were not notified by defendant Collins left for his “break.” This left the residents in the memory care unit, who have various individualized service plants with various needs unattended for over two and a half hours, which created an unreasonable risk of harm to the residents. Defendant Collins did not conduct normal 1-2 hour checks on residents to confirm that there were no concerns. Had these checks been done [the victim] would have been found to not be in her room. None of the defendants contacted management after the alarm went off. None of the defendants checked the outside of the facility. None of the defendants wrote a report about the fire alarm sounding. Neither defendant Valentin or defendant Lozano responded to the audible fire alarm in memory care for 28 minutes. Once defendant Valentin responded to the alarm, it was then noticed that defendant Collins was not in the facility at the memory care unit. Defendant Valentin notified defendant Lozano approximately 4 minutes later and turned the alarm off with a key. Defendants Lozano and Valentin assumed another resident was the one who set the alarm off, and did not follow protocols by checking on the residents to confirm they were all accounted for. Defendants Lozano and Valentin did not open the fire exit door to check outside, nor was a walk around of the building conducted to confirm no residents were outside. This is in disregard of proper protocols to check on residents to determine they were present after the fire alarm, and compromised the safety of the residents, including [the victim]. The temperature at this time was approximately 9 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes an unreasonable risk of harm, or death. Based on the fact that [the victim’s] bed was made and she was wearing the same clothing as observed by her son and daughter in law the day before, it appears as if [the victim] was never checked on to see if she was in bed at any point in the night… The three employees on duty at Parkside Manor, defendant Collins, defendant Valentin, and defendant Lozano, all failed to follow these policies and procedures to safeguard the residents at the facility. As a result of their failure to follow these policies and procedures, [the victim] exited the building, and was unable to re-enter the facility in single digit cold, resulting in her death.”
All three defendants are awaiting trial.
(Cell Phone Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
(Cell Phone Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
32 Responses
“In a scathing 20-page report”
Seems government excels at issuing reports after the fact….so the big question is who was responsible for oversight before something really bad happened?
Seems 20 pages is rookie numbers compared to KUSD’s “almost 200 page report”.
BTW—Would appear that the person running Department of Health Services is a Tony Evers appointee…..
Secretary Kirsten Johnson
Kirsten Johnson was appointed by Gov. Evers to serve as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) beginning in February 2023.”
What a stupid comment.
The Department investigates alleged violations and then issues a report stating their findings and orders.
Parkside Manor’s administrator, Ms. Lee Hozey, is the one responsible for the facility. She was hired after the December 2022 death. You’d think she would know to be more vigilant over her employees…but I guess she’d have to actually be there to do that.
Is the facility licensed by the State?
If so then someone(?) must be getting paid to ensure compliance to State regulations—-or not.
A similar situation is ongoing with another Evers appointee up at Waupun State Prison.
As always….if you depend on government you will most likely be very disappointed. The Liberal/Democrat Tony Evers Administration has excelled in taxpayers being disappointed.
Oh gosh….Tony used to be in charge of public schools……
Those fines seem very insignificant, given the size of the organization and the severity of the issues.
Back in 2013, when I worked there, residents paid in the $8k ballpark to live there.
I would think that fines closer to the $10k mark, would make more of an impact, and give them more of a reason to change.
I agree, the fines are a bad joke. Hit these owners where it hurts.
They need to start revoking professional licensures, too. There needs to be some personal stake, too. Most of these places have non-professional staff who are working under the supervision & direction of an/multiple RN’s. The professional licensure of these nurses need to be suspended or revoked. No more second chances. These are vulnerable humans who are paying significantly to receive protection & care.
This facility doesn’t employ RNs. They had one LPN, who is no longer there.
It could be a corporate RN, but there must be an RN who “supervises” medication management— does not have to be direct supervision, but there must be an RN license attached to medication management.
They are on their fourth Wellness Director in the past year. All four have been LPNs.
That’s not true. The current one is an RN and the one before her was an RN. But yes, they go through them about every 3 months.
The DHS statement states in part:
“When violations are extensive, repeated, or egregious, or when other sanctions have proven ineffective, license revocation is at times the best assurance for resident safety and protection. Nonetheless, if a facility corrects the violations and is able to achieve and sustain compliance with the requirements, revocation may not be the most appropriate sanction. Many residents are vulnerable due to their medical conditions, frailties, and physical, psychological, or cognitive disabilities. Relocation can be traumatic and detrimental for residents and this is an important consideration made by DHS.”
Currently there are 41 residents. If the facility’s license is revoked, not only would the residents be traumatized by being moved to a new, strange place, but where would they be placed? Where are there 41 vacancies? Not only were “terrible mistakes” made, as Kevin correctly states, but if Parkside Manor doesn’t get a handle on this and remedy it, they have a disaster in the making.
This is the state of care in most Kenosha care facilities. Brookside is the only decent one. I hope Parkside is required to notify all of the families with loved ones living there. These facilities need to pay better to get decent employees, but its not affordable to do that. We as a country must do better for the elderly and disabled. How sad. Maybe we can stop sending money overseas and spend on our own people who need it first.
Most the of the jobs are low paying, low skilled jobs. Long term care has gotten significantly worse over the last few years because workers can make more money at fast food or retail without a caretaker license. Why do we pay people with such important jobs so little? These are jobs that take compassion and dedication all while dealing with unpleasant things like changing diapers, cleaning up vomit and dealing with severely mentally and physically disabled people. The general public should visit some of these facilities and they would have a real eye opener.
Like daycare providers, nursing assistants and personal care workers are pulled from pool of often terrible, low life, immoral groups of individuals.
It is affordable for the facilities to pay more to attract better employees. Assisted living residents pay thousands each month to live where they do. The reason the facilities don’t pay more is that it would cut into their profits.
Brookside is good, for now. Kenosha County is no longer the top-notch employer that it used to be. While the county board is so concerned about losing a few (very awful) division heads, HR is driving off good mid-and/low level employees. Gentz doesn’t care about that, though. They’re too poor for the County Board Democrats to care about. Watch for Brookside to start having the same issues as all other facilities.
Anything run by the government is a disaster.
Locally, the government-owned and -run Brookside Care Center is the highest-rated one. The staff is paid by the taxpayers. All the rest are for-profit, and boy, do they devote themselves to that end.
Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), who go to school and are licensed to do their jobs, don’t typically work in assisted living facilities because they aren’t paid enough. Assisted living caregivers are hired off the street and given a few hours of training and turned loose to care for elderly, vulnerable people. And this is what happens.
Don’t get me wrong, many unlicensed caregivers are good at their job by virtue of their own character and desire to help people. But if they are not and are only there for the paycheck, they have nothing to lose by doing a poor job (until someone dies).
The two women who are charged in connection with the resident’s death in December 2022 have their trials set for this September.
Demontae Collins, the person who was in charge of the memory unit and left for several hours during his shift, has a status conference set for August 7th.
He has yet to have a Public Defender appointed. Since December. How is this case allowed to drag on like this?
I’ve visited this facility many times, and most staff are kind and compassionate. You can tell they care about the residents. They shouldn’t all get a bad rap because of the ones that don’t care.
I was told because it’s hard to keep managers. There have been at least 9 to 10 managers that have quit working under the current director Lee Hozey and she’s only been there a little over a year. These are adults with college degrees and certifications. People who have survived, hurricanes, tornados, loss of loved ones, divorce, cancer, snake bites, the military, but couldn’t survive six weeks working under Lee Hozey. Apparently, she creates a toxic work environment.
And the owners of the place don’t care. A fish rots from the head down.
Truth!!!
Our modern society is the real source of the problem. Too many people focused on their own selfish desires who don’t give a hoot about grandma or grandpa…clueless that THEIR day will one day come.
We warehouse the innocent ‘vulnerable’, the ‘inconvenient’ among us; the elderly, the disabled, veterans, the mentally ill, the unborn.
We are a selfish, sick society.
And don’t try to tell me that government is the answer.
Not given the state of public education these days.
Let’s not give Lee Hozey all of the credit for running Parkside Manor into the ground. With the help of her clown accomplice Meredith Humphrey, who is supposed to over see Parkside Manor and help fix issues yet all she’s done is justify Lee’s despicable and mischievous actions, supported her lies, and brushes everything under the rug. Should I bring up the assistant manager who is a bully, ghetto, and very unprofessional, who also illegally trains carestaff to pass medication, knowing the corporate nurse is the only one who is supposed to do that? Need’nt say no more. Well, the dirt is starting to pile up, the patches are coming undone. Only a matter of time.
Meredith is the WORST. She knows Lee for what she is and turns a blind eye.
Did anyone realize that Parkside gets less violations than any of the others in the county?? Agreed that Good help is hard to find, and keep when the wages are poor. Parkside is lucky to have Lee, the reason people have left is because she demands accountability and those who ha’ve left did not follow or want to follow the standards. These issues occurred BEFORE Lee arrived and she’s there to resolve them. How do I know?? My mother has been there since 2019, in addition to the fact, I’m an RN, for 40 years. I’ve seen the changes and improvements. The facility operates better now than when she arrived and I thank Lee for that. The violations have been addressed, and those responsible are no longer present. Please know the facts before you comment!
I guess Lee isn’t the only one that’s one eyed. You have no idea. But if being delusional helps you get through the day then, be my guest!
As someone who has not worked for Lee, you are the one without the facts. I challenge you to go work there. Let’s see how long you last.
Parkside Manor in the public eye again?! Shocker.
This facility is despicable and corporate leaders are well aware what’s going on behind closed doors and choose to turn a blind eye. Similar to the one eyed administration, Lee Hozey. Who has done a great job of warming the administrator chair behind a closed office door with her assistant and any nurse she can entice to cover up the negligence happening. Family calls ignored, staffed bullied, residents neglected and of course medications missed. Staff isn’t leaving because they are being held accountable, they leave because of Lee Hozey. No one deserves to be unappreciated , understaffed, and overworked in such a toxic environment.
What is this “one eyed” nonsense, ya loon?
And then, when things come crashing down, Lee will pin it all on someone else. Next thing you know… that nurse you speak of, or assistant you speak of… is getting bogus write-ups and then fired. Lee has ZERO accountability for the things she’s responsible for and gets away with it all. Even if it means stepping on someone else to save herself.