Saturday, January 28, 2006
Fines are $500 for the first offense and $1,000 thereafter, state official says.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GREENE -- The owner of what state officials called an unlicensed Greene Township group home may face fines and a court order to cease operations if he violates the licensing law again, a state official has warned.
"We will seek immediate injunctive action and refer the case to the Trumbull County prosecutor," wrote Roy D. Croy, chief of community health care facilities for the Ohio Department of Health.
Croy sent the certified letter earlier this month to Anthony Wroblesky, owner of the home at 10140 Higgins-Dorset Road, based on a Dec. 14 visit to the home by ODH inspectors, who were responding to a complaint.
Operating an unlicensed adult care facility carries a $500 fine for the first offense and a $1,000 fine for each subsequent offense, Croy told Wroblesky in the letter that was accompanied by a license application packet.
During the December inspection, Judge Thomas A. Swift of Trumbull County Probate Court ordered five elderly women and an elderly man removed from the large farmhouse and taken to St. Joseph Health Center in Warren for evaluation.
A seventh resident, an elderly woman, was removed to her family's care. Two other female residents were away from the facility when it was inspected.
Findings
In his letter, Croy said the ODH inspectors found that personal care was being provided to seven of the nine unrelated residents of the home. State law requires residences that provide personal care to more than two unrelated adults to have a license.
Personal care includes providing assistance with eating, medication administration, bathing, dressing, grooming or toileting, said John Saulitis, long term care ombudsman for the District XI Area Agency on Aging in Youngstown.
Saulitis, who accompanied the inspectors in December, said the inspection team found elderly people behind locked doors with metal grates over the windows, medications in disarray and a strong odor of urine. The residents were taken from the home by ambulance or ambulette, and three had to be removed on gurneys, Saulitis said.
Two of the residents were admitted to the hospital for medical reasons, one of them for bedsores, Saulitis reported to ODH the day after the inspection. Others were discharged from the hospital with family members on the evening of Dec. 14.
ODH inspectors revisited the home on Jan. 6 to determine whether the residents had returned, but nobody answered the door or arrived on the premises while they were there, Croy said in his letter to Wroblesky.
Wroblesky declined to comment when telephoned by a reporter Friday morning.