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ARCHDALE, N.C. (WGHP) — Several family members of current and former patients at Westwood Health and Rehabilitation have reached out to FOX8 after learning about an investigation by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
A letter to the facility states that the conditions at the Archdale care facility are detrimental to the health and safety of the residents and forbids the center from accepting new patients.
“I was relieved. I would much rather have heard them say they shut the place down, they transported all the patients to other places where hopefully they get better care,” said Ricky Combs, whose father was a patient at the facility late last year.
Combs said his father Gene Combs was admitted in late December after suffering a heart attack. Combs said Gene was in the facility less than a week before he was told his father rolled onto a concrete floor.
According to Combs, his father was taken to the hospital where he remained incoherent until he passed away about two weeks later.
“He never came out of it, got a little bit worse and a little bit worse,” he said Tuesday.
Combs said the accident should have never happened.
“There’s no side rails on the beds for safety to keep patients from falling out of the bed,” he said. “How many other people are falling, twisting ankles, breaking wrists or something that may not be getting reported? I don’t know but what goes on that’s unseen. Nobody knows.”
NCDHHS officials could not provide the number of current patients or say how many staff members are caring for them.
FOX8 found 10 open positions at the location listed by Consulate Health Care, which appears to operate the facility.
“I would never ever send anybody there if they have the same staff they’ve got now. They would really have to show me some improvements,” Combs said.
State records show officials cited deficiencies at the facility in both 2020 and 2019.
Combs is gathering records from Westwood and the hospital to piece together what happened.
He hopes other families will check in on patients.
“If people’s got people in that place, that they would go see them. They will visit them. They will ask a lot of questions,” he said.
FOX8 attempted to speak with leadership at the facility by phone and in person. We were asked to leave the property.
Westwood is expected to submit a plan of correction to the state by April 24.
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