GUILDERLAND — Guilderland Center nursing home employees picketed on June 10, asking their employer for justice, but, a former resident’s family said this week, the employees care only about the money, and not the people.

The management at the facility, Grand Healthcare Systems, has not returned repeated calls for comment for over two weeks.

Wilna Brooks lived at the Guilderland Center nursing home after recovering from a heart attack at Ellis Hospital in May.

Her daughter, Cheryl Frantzen, said her mother chose the facility because it was close to two of her children and to her house, where she had been living independently before her heart attack.

“They degraded her there,” said another of her daughters, Marie Stuber. “Her dignity was completely stripped.”

Among the complaints Brooks’s family had about the quality of care were an overall lack of attention, failure to provide proper medication, rough handling by nurses, failure to assist with toileting, and failure to respond to Brooks’s assertions of pain and trouble breathing.

Stuber said Brooks had been at the nursing home for over a week when she discovered that her mother’s prescription for pain medication, which she received from the hospital, had not been filled, despite her being told directly that it had.

Stuber also said that Brooks, although she requires assistance to stand, is capable of using the bathroom on her own, but was told to use a diaper because “they didn’t have time or couldn’t be bothered to help her use the toilet.”

Frantzen said she visited Brooks on June 4, and, as she walked down the corridor to her room, heard someone crying out for help; as she got closer, she realized it was her mother.

Brooks was trying to get someone to come and help her clean up after filling her diaper, and she told Frantzen that she had been trying to get someone’s attention for at least 45 minutes.

Frantzen said she left the room to find someone who could help and the aid who responded said she could not understand what Brooks was trying to ask.

When the aid finally understood, she told Brooks she would need to wait, because she was busy with another resident; Frantzen said it was a “good several minutes” before the aid returned, after which the resident sharing Brooks’s room asked if she, too, could have her diaper changed. The aid walked out, said Frantzen.

“There were staff members going in and out of rooms, and I don’t know if they were following a routine they couldn’t break or whether there was another resident who needed immediate assistance,” said Frantzen. “I don’t know what the priority was.”

Brooks told Frantzen during the same visit that a male nurse had come to help her out of bed and had handled her roughly. He had picked her up and forcefully dropped her into a chair, said Frantzen.

“She told me point blank she wanted nothing to do with that nurse anymore,” said Frantzen.

The final straw, according to Stuber, came on June 12, when the nursing home lost power during a storm.

Stuber said she was out to dinner that evening and missed four phone calls from her mother between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. She called Brooks back and could tell from her voice she was distressed.

Brooks told Stuber that she was having trouble breathing and did not feel like she was getting enough oxygen from her tank, and also that she was in extreme pain, but could not get any staff at the facility to help her.

“She called it severe, agonizing pain,” said Stuber.

Stuber tried calling the nursing home and said no one answered the phone.

“I freaked out,” she said. She called 9-1-1.

Paramedics came and transported Brooks to Ellis Hospital, where she was diagnosed with pneumonia, a severe kidney infection, and a blood infection, all things Stuber said should have been recognized at the nursing home.

Brooks also had the beginnings of bedsores, she said.

Stuber called the nursing home administrator and explained her concerns, she said, but received no explanations and no information about how the concerns would be addressed.

“There was no one there that was helpful or easy to talk to,” she said.

She filed a complaint with the state’s Department of Health and was told an investigation would be opened, although she has not yet received a timeline.

Checkered history

According to the DOH, the Guilderland Center nursing home has received 87 complaints, from either a resident or a resident’s friend or family member, in the past four years. Over that time period, the DOH conducted 36 on-site inspections and gave the facility 31 citations. Twelve of the citations were due to deficiencies in quality of care, and 14 were due to deficiencies in patient rights.

From April 2011 to March 2015, it had 54 more “standard health deficiencies” than the average nursing home, 22 more life-safety deficiencies, and 65 more total deficiencies. Twelve percent of the deficiencies found were related to “actual harm or immediate jeopardy,” according to an inspection report from the DOH.

The facility has 127 beds and the Service Employees International Union local 1199 represents 110 workers at this time.

The nursing home has changed ownership at least four times over the past 12 years. It is currently owned by the Grand Healthcare System, which employees say has repeatedly violated the contract they entered into in December.

Union members claim the management company has failed to pay health insurance premiums, even though the money for it has been taken from their paychecks, and has failed to pay for overtime hours and holiday time.

“There’s a direct connection between the livelihood of health-care workers and quality care,” said Rosa Lomuscio, the vice president of the union, on June 10. “How can health-care workers assist their patients if they are worried about making ends meet at home or are sick because they don’t have insurance?”

Frantzen, though, said she did not understand how the staff at the facility could not find time for proper patient care, but could find the time to picket.

“I know these aren’t the best jobs to have and understand the staff have a beef with their employer for inaccurate wages, unpaid insurance premiums, etc,” said Frantzen. “However, those ill wills should never be taken out on these elderly patients who, for the most part, are completely dependent upon them for their daily care.”

“That’s exactly why they were on the picket line, though,” said Mindy Berman, communications director for the union, this week. “They can’t do the job they want to do because they aren’t getting the resources they need.”

Management needs to do its part, she said.

“It infuriates me,” said Berman. “The employees are being blamed when it isn’t their fault; these are all trained, professional, dedicated workers, many of whom have been there for years.”

Berman said Lomuscio met with representatives from the Grand Healthcare System on June 30 and, of a list of 20 issues to be resolved, 15 were settled. They plan to have another meeting on July 9 to work on the five outstanding items.

“We’re making progress,” said Berman.

Praise from a patient

Not all residents agree about the care at the Guilderland Center Nursing Home being sub par.

Joseph Merli, who spent four weeks there in December to receive rehabilitation services after undergoing chemotherapy, wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor praising the staff of the nursing home.

“I cannot say enough for the encouragement, compassion, and kindness that the nurses and staff gave me in spirit to help me recover from my situation,” Merli wrote, describing how they helped him with exercises to regain hand and leg strength and improve his motor skills and taught him to use a walker.

“The staff at Guilderland nursing home are truly a special group of people who not only treated me, but who every day and night take care of the elderly and less fortunate,” he wrote.