BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The man that owns the nursing homes that evacuated its residents to a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse due to Hurricane Ida is filing an appeal to get the licenses for those nursing homes reinstated.
The Louisiana Department of Health said 15 of the nearly 850 nursing home residents evacuated to the warehouse died.
Baton Rouge businessman Bob Deans owns the seven nursing homes in question.
- River Palms Nursing and Rehab, Orleans Parish
- South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab, Lafourche Parish
- Maison Orleans Healthcare Center, Orleans Parish
- Park Place Healthcare Nursing Home, Jefferson Parish
- West Jefferson Health Care Center, Jefferson Parish
- Maison De Ville Nursing Home, Terrebonne Parish
- Maison Deville Nursing Home of Harvey, Jefferson Parish
On September 7, the Louisiana Department of Health revoked the licenses of all seven nursing homes. In revoking the licenses, LDH Secretary Dr. Courtney N. Phillips said “All of these nursing facilities clearly failed to execute their emergency preparedness plans to provide essential care and services to their residents.”
In the letter to the (Louisiana) Division of Administrative Law, lawyers for Dean said the Tangipahoa facility had previously been approved to be used as an evacuation site by the Louisiana Department of Health and blame the shift in Hurricane Ida’s track as the reason why the facility was left in the state it was in.
“Because of the damage throughout Tangipahoa Parish, many services which the facility was relying upon were stopped. Garbage was not picked up and the landfill was closed. The linen service was unable to come to the facility to pick up linens. The port-o-let service was unable to come and empty the port-o-lets” the letter states.
Click here to read the appeal letter
The Louisiana Division of Administrative Law will hear the appeal. It’s unclear when that appeal will take place.