County of Sullivan header
File #: ID-5369    Version: 1 Name:
Type: Report Status: Agenda Ready
File created: 3/7/2023 In control: County Legislature
On agenda: 5/11/2023 Final action:
Enactment date: Enactment #:
Title: Lise Kennedy Public Comment
Date Ver.Action ByActionResultAction DetailsMeeting DetailsVideo
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2/16/23

Hi everybody. I’m Lise Kennedy, from Neversink.  Katie Perez claims that the ACC’s star ratings will increase to 4. Where is this substantiated? The latest ratings from Medicare Compare were released in January and they are still 2 stars as compares to the other nursing homes in this county, which are both 3 stars.  3 stars means average. Katie said that the turnover rate for new hires in 2022 is that they kept 94 and lost 40. So, Infinitecare failed to retain 1/3 of their hires. That’s not great management.

She said, “We’ve hired more people than when we came.” What does that mean?  Does it mean that we have more staff working now than when Infinitecare took up the management contract in late 2021? Let’s see some actual numbers on that.

Ira asked for numbers of patient census, which we have available in the ACC reports from the H&HS meetings.  In October 2021, there were 87 patients. A year later, in October 2022, there were 95, and this month there are 103.  Katie said there were 9 patients on the “subacute” unit, so there are 94 on the other 3.  I was told that through this last holiday weekend, there were 4 CNAs on the daytime shift, one on each unit.  There were also domestic aides, who can assist but are not able to transfer, toilet, or perform hygiene, during a time when the COVID infection rates climbed to ¼ of the patient census during the holiday weekend. Katie would have you believe that patients were being protected from the spreading infection this weekend, but staff obviously were not using any more PPE than was evident in county buildings while infection spread to ¼ of the DFS workforce recently, but the difference is that the 103 patients in the ACC are at very high risk for serious illness from COVID. How can 4 CNAs possibly take care of 103 patients especially during an outbreak, which imposes a lot of extra work?  Yes, there are BOCES students and domestic aides to help, but it’s the CNAs who have to do the heavy lifting.  It doesn’t help that a few administrative people have been trained as CHAs or whatever because they stayed home last weekend.

Do you actually believe that care is adequate at the adult care center under Infinitecare management?  Do you actually believe Katie Perez’s spin when she says that of course they would never accept more patients than they are able to care for?  Or is it all just about the money and you don’t care about the quality of care?

This legislature has asked for the reconciliations that Infinitecare is contracted to provide repeatedly, but Katie was unprepared for that, so now you’ve agreed to wait for Sol to enlighten us when he has a moment to spare.  This is a hell of a way to conduct business.  In my opinion, we should end the contract with Infinitecare and end the LDC, return the ACC to county ownership, hire back local medical providers and hire competent county employees to run the place.