SALISBURY, N.C. — A Salisbury nursing home has faced allegations that include lack of medications, severe staffing shortage and unsafe conditions.
At one point, The Citadel experienced the largest COVID-19 outbreak in North Carolina.
An upcoming class action lawsuit claims that problems started before the pandemic.
“We were assured that he would be fine, and that he would be in a private room,” said Lisa Moody, about her father, who is a resident at the facility.
[Husband, wife die weeks apart at Salisbury nursing home because of COVID-19]
Moody and her sister, Kelly Fesperman, moved their father into The Citadel on March 31, 2020, and they thought it would be for just a few weeks of rehab.
Fesperman said that by then the nursing home was struggling with a massive outbreak of COVID-19 and that her father died weeks later.
The lawsuit alleges The Citadel was operating with critical staffing shortages that compromised the care of residents.
The problem was magnified after The Citadel and dozens of other nursing homes in North Carolina were bought by the private equity firm, The Portopiccolo Group, that put more emphasis on the bottom line than caring for patients, the lawsuit states.
“I mean, this was our father, .... and we loved him so much and miss him every day,” Fesperman said.
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The lawsuit quotes an expert on nursing home care who says the problems continued through the end of 2020.
The lawsuit wants The Citadel’s parent company to pay residents and their families damages.
“I would like to see that they’re no longer allowed to buy nursing homes in North Carolina, and I’d like to see it end here, with our dad,” Moody said.
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