Executive Committee
Good morning. It’s very sad that I have to make a public comment about the failure of our own department which is dedicated to supporting individuals with disabilities. I wonder why there hasn’t been any public announcement that the ACC is not accepting any new patients. You must have received calls from your constituents concerning this. The ACC is a county owned nursing home and I think that the owner/operator owes the taxpayers some sort of notification, as people are still hoping and trying to have their disabled loved ones admitted there. It would be better for them to know that the ACC is not currently admitting any patients than to add to their frustrations.
The reason for this freeze on admissions is that the ACC is currently undergoing the process of a Complaint Survey, which has placed the facility into the category of “Immediate Jeopardy.” Whether or not admissions will resume, it must be obvious that things at the ACC have gone from bad to worse. The census there is now 98, in a facility with 140 plus beds. I believe that the staffing situation there is their worse problem, and seems, at least to the management and their consultant there, to be impossible to fix. They seem to have no plan to address the re-establishment of a stable long-term staff. I hope that this legislature will consider solutions such as increased marketing and providing incentives for hiring for county positions there, similar to what was offered during the pandemic, rather than just continuing to passively watch the facility’s decline.
Thank you.