Family of deceased Riverbend resident files first lawsuit against KCK nursing home
The family of an 87-year-old man who is among the 27 people who have died amid a coronavirus outbreak at the Riverbend Post Acute Rehabilitation nursing home in Kansas City, Kansas, has sued the facility.
Addie Long and Latrice Newman, the spouse and daughter of Okey Long, accuse Riverbend of negligence in its handling of the coronavirus spread at the nursing home and failing to inform Long’s family about the outbreak.
Long tested positive for coronavirus on April 6 and died on April 17. The 27 deaths at Riverbend to date account for about a quarter of Kansas’ overall death toll of 110 from fatal coronavirus infections. Long was first admitted to Riverbend in February, the lawsuit says.
“They fully expected him to come home,” said the family’s lawyer, Rachel Stahle, of the Dollar Burns Becker law firm. “All of this came out of the blue to them. It’s clear there are transparency issues between Riverbend and the families. They did not know this was an outbreak until well after it started.”
Riverbend declined to comment on the lawsuit.
“Due to the recent public discussion of potential litigation against Riverbend, I think it prudent for me to discontinue responding to media requests,” said Riverbend executive director Cory Schulte in an email to The Star.
The lawsuit, filed in Wyandotte County District Court on Thursday, claims Riverbend knew, or should have known, by March 31 of the importance of keeping coronavirus out of its facility and monitoring residents and staff for symptoms of infection and ensuring social distancing guidelines.
On April 1, testing showed that an employee and a resident were infected by coronavirus, a number that would spread to 17 residents and two staff members who were infected by April 3.
Long’s family says in the lawsuit that they were not notified by Riverbend of the outbreak; instead, they learned of it from the news media.
The lawsuit accuses Riverbend of not following guidelines for preventing the spread of infection in long-term care facilities, lacking adequate staff for handling the outbreak and failing to follow a plan of care for Long, among other claims of wrongdoing.
Stahle said Long went to the University of Kansas Hospital in late March or early April with a fever, but tested negative for the coronavirus. He went back to Riverbend, where he later tested positive but did not go back to a hospital and died on April 17 at Riverbend, according to Stahle.
Lawyers for the Long family claim in the lawsuit there is evidence that the outbreak started because a Riverbend employee was working with a cough and fever but was not wearing personal protective equipment.
“If they are taking the guidelines seriously, that should never have happened because everyone should have been screened before they came in,” Stahle said.
Stahle is representing another family in a wrongful death lawsuit against Riverbend that was filed in 2019. That case involves a death that resulted from pressure ulcers.
Data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes, showed that Riverbend had more residents than the Kansas and national average but was below Kansas and national averages for nurse staff hours per resident per day.
The lawsuit describes Long as in a frail, defenseless and dependent condition.
Riverbend is indirectly owned by The Ensign Group, a publicly-traded holding company in California of several long-term care facilities in 14 states.
In an annual report filed earlier this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission, The Ensign Group disclosed that it learned in 2018 it was under investigation by the Justice Department for possible violations of the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute related to some of its skilled nursing facilities in southern California. The company said it’s cooperating with the investigation.
The company also disclosed that it paid $48 million in 2013 to settle a Justice Department investigation related to claims submitted to the federal Medicare program. The Ensign Group bought Riverbend in 2016, according to SEC records.
An Ensign official on Wednesday did not address specific questions about the company’s matters with the Justice Department.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 1:16 PM.
