Table of Content
- Former nursing home manager in suburban Philadelphia pleas to endangering 3 residents
- Nearly a quarter of residents at these four Lancaster nursing homes have died from COVID-19
- Alpha, Beta instead of Britain, South Africa. Why the WHO is renaming COVID variants
- Former Delco nursing home manager pleads guilty to recklessly endangering 3 residents
- Air quality alert issued for Sunday in Lancaster County
- New owner of Conestoga View pleads no contest to role in Delaware County nursing home deaths
DARBY—Attorney General Josh Shapiro today announced Chaim “Charlie” Steg, former Regional Director of Operations at St. Francis Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare (St. Francis), has pled to his role in recklessly endangering three residents of the facility. This plea comes as the result of a joint investigation conducted by the Office of Attorney General and Darby Borough Police through the 44th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury. In addition, St. Francis will be required, through a civil settlement, to maintain an increased minimum staffing level and undergo quarterly audits by the Department of Health to ensure compliance. Steg's plea deal calls for a sentence of 6 to 23 months of house arrest and three years of probation, along with a $15,000 fine and restitution. Investigators concluded there had been “systemic failure,” mostly tied to inadequate staffing, the attorney general’s office said. The nursing home has agreed to maintain a sufficient number of employees and to be audited every three months for a year by the state Health Department, the attorney general’s office said.
Chaim “Charlie” Steg, Imperial’s CEO, appears only to have been in the field since 2018 but is now part-owner of 11 Pennsylvania nursing homes, five of which have 1-star ratings in the federal government’s Nursing Home Compare rankings. While those ratings may reflect the quality of care under previous owners, the risk to occupants remains. It is essential to be sure that the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives takes every measure necessary to protect its residents.
Former nursing home manager in suburban Philadelphia pleas to endangering 3 residents
A new owner of the former Conestoga View nursing home in Lancaster Township pleaded no contest to three counts of reckless endangerment of residents at a Delaware County nursing home, the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office has announced. The attorney general’s office said it was called in to investigate in August 2017, when local police and the state Health Department notified it about issues at the facility. Staff at Mercy Catholic Medical Center had told the Delaware County aging office that several residents from St. Francis arrived there in poor health. According to the attorney general’s office, St. Francis has agreed both to maintain adequate staffing and to be audited by the state Health Department at three month intervals for a year.
Steg has become part-owner in at least 11 other Pennsylvania nursing homes, most of them in the Philadelphia area, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. According to property records, the seller, S&P Real Estate Company, is an affiliate of Montgomery County-based Complete HealthCare Resources-Eastern Inc., the company operating the facility since 1993. “We have several criminal investigations ongoing into nursing homes during the time of COVID, and we will be making the announcements that we can make relatively shortly on that,” Shapiro said. The Wolf administration was repeatedly warned of dangerously low minimum staffing and weak and inconsistent inspections, all problems that could have made the outbreak worse.
Nearly a quarter of residents at these four Lancaster nursing homes have died from COVID-19
The operating company of the home, 1412 Lansdowne Operating LLC, and Catholic Facilities Operating LLC, will pay over a half million dollars toward caring for St. Francis’ residents and will also give $100,000 to the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly. Steg, the former regional director of operations at St. Francis Center in Darby, faces up to 23 months of house arrest, three years of probation, and a five-year ban on interacting with health care facilities. On top of that, Steg will be forced to pay a $15,000 fine and restitution to the families of the victims. St. Francis will be audited by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and, as a result of a civil settlement, be required to maintain a higher minimum-staffing level.
On June 2 a manager of a suburban Philadelphia nursing home pleaded no contest to misdemeanor reckless endangerment of three residents, says an article on nbcphiladelphia.com. Chaim “Charlie” Steg had been regional operations director for the St. Francis Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Darby where three residents who died in 2017 were determined to have suffered extreme health complications as a result of inadequate staffing levels. Steg’s plea stems from a 2017 investigation conducted by the state attorney general’s office and the Darby Borough Police. Shown is the St. Francis Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Darby, Pa., Wednesday, June 2, 2021. Chaim “Charlie” Steg, who oversaw the suburban Philadelphia nursing home pleaded no contest Wednesday, June 2, 2021, to endangering three residents who before dying suffered health complications because of inadequate staffing levels, prosecutors said. Chaim "Charlie" Steg, who oversaw the suburban Philadelphia nursing home pleaded no contest Wednesday, June 2, 2021, to endangering three residents who before dying suffered health complications because of inadequate staffing levels, prosecutors said.
Alpha, Beta instead of Britain, South Africa. Why the WHO is renaming COVID variants
Infections—In understaffed nursing homes, infections can go undetected by overburdened staff and are left to worsen. The list below contains all the nursing homes with the name "Steg, Chaim" listed as an owner. This does not necessarily mean the owner name "Steg, Chaim" has ownership in every nursinghome listed on this page. The table will display the owner ship role, as well as the phone number and the address of the nursinghome. In addition to being under audit, the two companies that run the facility, 1412 Lansdowne Operating LLC and Catholic Health Group, had to pay $600,000 into an escrow account for the benefit of the facility’s residents. Investors can set up real estate trusts and separate the property from the nursing home operation, and use the real estate company to charge the nursing home business rent, she said.
DARBY, Pa. (CBS/AP) - A man who oversaw a Delaware County nursing home pleaded no contest Wednesday to endangering three residents who before dying suffered health complications because of inadequate staffing levels, prosecutors said. — A man who oversaw a suburban Philadelphia nursing home pleaded no contest Wednesday to endangering three residents who before dying suffered health complications because of inadequate staffing levels, prosecutors said. Chaim “Charlie” Steg of Lakewood, New Jersey, will be sentenced to six to 23 months of house arrest followed by three years of probation. Under his probation conditions, Steg “cannot staff, manage, own, or operate the nursing, clinical, or medical services of any skilled nursing facility for five years,” according to the attorney general’s office. A man who oversaw a suburban Philadelphia nursing home pleaded no contest Wednesday to endangering three residents who before dying suffered health complications because of inadequate staffing levels, prosecutors said. An investigation revealed a “systemic failure” due primarily to inadequate staffing.
Created to give greater information to consumers when making a placement decision, the five-star rating system is administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That’s the sixth-most deaths of any nursing home in the state, according to the DOH data. So they sold the facility to Complete HealthCare Resources’ real estate affiliate, S&P Real Estate Co., for $13.3 million in cash and other considerations, according to LNP
Our database of information about owners, managers, and directors of skilled nursing homes is based primarily on data provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid ("CMS"). CMS updates this information eleven times a year, typically at the end of each calendar month except for December. We pull the data as soon as it is available, run through a series of data checks and calculations and make the new data available right away. The business entities of St. Francis, including a limited liability company that paid Steg’s salary, also agreed to a more-than $1 million settlement with the attorney general’s office.
A former nursing director told investigators she sometimes disobeyed Steg's orders and hired agency nurses "just so she could sleep at night," the attorney general's office said. The case involves patients who died in 2017 of a massive colon infection and dehydration; severe dehydration and septic shock; and severe late-stage pressure wounds and a bacterial infection. Conestoga View housed three or four residents in each room, allowing the virus to spread easily, the investigation found. The facility also failed to implement testing and provide enough personal protective equipment, a widespread problem at health care sites early in the pandemic. The Lancaster Township nursing home facility long known as Conestoga View, site of the sixth-highest number of COVID-19 deaths among nursing facilities in the state, has a new owner.
Steg’s plea deal calls for a sentence of 6 to 23 months of house arrest and three years of probation, along with a $15,000 fine and restitution. He will be barred for five years from overseeing nursing, clinical or medical services of a skilled nursing facility. A former nursing director told investigators she sometimes disobeyed Steg’s orders and hired agency nurses “just so she could sleep at night,” the attorney general’s office said. Former manager of PA nursing home pleads guilty to endangering residents, Steg, whose sentencing was set for October, will serve, according to his plea deal, 6 to 23 months on house arrest and three years of probation. He will pay fines and restitution of $15,000 and will be barred from managing a skilled nursing facility for five years. The investigation identified three St. Francis residents who were victims of neglect.
LancasterOnline that they are worried for the safety of residents due to staff cuts and departures. All were granted anonymity due to their fear of professional retaliation for speaking. Steg has been known in Philadelphia’s nursing home sector for several years, according to Diane Menio, executive director at CARIE, an advocacy group for the elderly based in Philadelphia.
Another witness testified the conditions were so poor that she filed a complaint with the Department of Health citing concerns over the ratio of nurses to patients. A former staffing coordinator testified that St. Francis was understaffed on a daily basis and she received constant complaints from staff and family members of the residents. The investigation into St. Francis began after the Office of Attorney General received dual referrals from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Darby Borough Police Department.
LancasterOnline found that under Steg’s ownership, five of those 12 nursing homes fell from a three- or two-star ratings to the lowest possible one-star rating. Six of Steg’s facilities saw no ultimate change in their star rating and one, Rose View Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Williamsport, improved from one star to two stars after he took an ownership stake. The former manager of a Delaware County nursing home has pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering the lives of three residents. The entities have agreed to pay $600,000 into an escrow account for the care of St. Francis residents and $100,000 to a non-profit group, Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly.
Shapiro said the inadequate staffing was not the result of financial hardship, but rather total negligence. A joint investigation between the Attorney General’s Office and Darby Borough Police began in 2017, when nurses from nearby Mercy Catholic Medical Center sounded the alarm on the deteriorating condition of residents who were transferred from the nursing home to the hospital. Across Pa., about 40,000 residents of more than 1,300 nursing and personal care homes have contracted the virus to date. Since the initial outbreak of COVID-19 last year, 233 LNRC residents have contracted the virus, and 81 residents have died from it, according to the latest self-reported data to DOH. Unlike higher-rated facilities in the area, most Conestoga View residents depend on Medicaid to pay toward their housing.
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