Worse For Care

The stairs reminded Tina Fede that she was sick. The little residential care home she manages in Bennington has just one flight, and she usually trots up and down it without a thought. Now the steps left her short of breath.

The focus on COVID-19 last year didn't mean that the typical problems in Vermont's eldercare facilities went away.

In late 2019, Seven Days and Vermont Public Radio published a series of stories that revealed Vermont's state-regulated eldercare facilities often failed their mostly elderly denizens, with medical errors and accidents leading to harm and even deaths.

Monica Hutt, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living (DAIL), said her department has delayed its rulemaking process for state-licensed long-term care homes to implement changes based on a joint investigation by VPR and Seven Days.

A VPR and Seven Days investigation has uncovered instances of inadequate care, neglect and five untimely deaths at Vermont’s assisted living and residential care homes. Behind that joint reporting is a database of inspection reports and citations that took months to build.

In early 2014, a caller to the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living reported that at Owen House, a residential care home in Fair Haven, a resident's foot was "rotting from the inside out" due to neuropathy and poor care.

Vermont families who rely on eldercare homes often know little about their track records, despite state inspections that document problem after problem. Families make crucial care decisions in the dark.

A joint investigation by VPR and Seven Days uncovered inadequate care and staffing across Vermont’s eldercare facilities, deficiencies that ultimately led to indignities, injuries and at least five deaths.

We're talking to the reporters behind the Worse For Care series about the challenges faced by Vermont's assisted living and residential care homes.

Families who make the difficult decision to place an elderly relative in a residential care or assisted living home must then ask: Which home?

Marilyn Kelly's health declined quickly during her eight months at an eldercare home. The 78-year-old entered Our House Too in Rutland a spirited woman who could cast a fishing rod. She soon began taking falls, and her visiting daughters often found their mother slumped in a stupor.