On July 31, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the results of a report following a series of government officials’ unannounced evaluations of 91 long-term care facilities in May.
Nearly 90% of the surveyed facilities failed some portion of the evaluations, according to New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen. Out of those, 11 received perfect scores and four failed.
More than a third of the perfect scores were from facilities in Santa Fe: The Montecito Santa Fe; its memory care counterpart, The Montecito Santa Fe Memory Care Community; Kingston Residence of Santa Fe; and Pacifica Senior Living Santa Fe, which has since retired its assisted living model and been rebranded as 55-plus apartments. It had previously received poor assessments and was in the process of rebranding during the time of the May visit, when only one resident remained, according to The Santa Fe New Mexican.
Lujan Grisham kicked off the news conference in Albuquerque by discussing her experience visiting her mother in a long-term care facility in Albuquerque during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My mom was unclothed, was sick, very sick and had been sick in that bed—without a sheet, without being cleaned, without medication, without seeing a doctor—and was crying out for help,” Lujan Grisham said. “And at the same time, telling me, ‘I’ll be OK.’ And another resident ran in and said, ‘We’re not safe here.’”
“The point of that story is that it happens to everyone in the state,” she said.
Eighty facilities throughout the state received imperfect evaluations, and 10% had residents who were in unhygienic circumstances, Allen said.
Allen also emphasized the importance of keeping residents socially active, adding that fewer than 70% of residents in the surveyed facilities had been engaged in activities.
“It’s a really crucial element of the standard of care,” he said.
The Montecito and The Montecito Memory Care Community emphasize the importance of activities and engagement, according to Community Relations Director Rachael Hemann. The facilities are certified with their Montessori-style programming through the Center For Applied Research in Dementia, she notes.
“It looks very similar to Montessori for school-aged children, in which all the activities are broken down into step-by-step so that no matter where a resident is physically and mentally, they can participate in activities with everybody,” Hemann says.
The standalone Montecito Memory Care Community, which is run by the same team as the regular care facility, was launched about three years ago, she says.
“All of our directors have over 20 years experience in the industry, and that’s what I attribute it (the perfect score) to,” Hemann says.
The other still-standing Santa Fe-based facility that received a perfect score, Kingston Residence, also provides social engagement opportunities to its residents, according to Marketing Director Ruben Vasquez.
The facility has a dedicated activities director, a monthly newsletter and a monthly activities calendar, he says. Incoming residents are also given a survey to fill out regarding what types of activities interest them.
One of the main draws, though, is Kingston’s 24/7 onsite nursing, Vasquez says.
“We’re a good place for somebody to grow in place—so they don’t have to move once they need more services,” he says.
Outside of Santa Fe, issues that representatives found in different facilities throughout the state included unmet nutritional needs, a patient who was left without clothes, employees who were unaware of a patient walking out of the facility, serious injuries from bed sores and more.
The state’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program aims to combat some of these issues with ombudsman volunteers. They visit different facilities on a regular basis to build relationships with the residents and ensure that their needs are met, according to Aging & Long-Term Services Department Cabinet Secretary Jen Paul Schroer.
Schroer cited a Deming incident in which staff members hadn’t been following regulatory procedures and ombudsmen held employees accountable.
“Because of our work, because of the ombudsmen working with the facility, because of the facility being willing to work with us, we’ve seen drastic improvement,” Schroer said.
Lujan Grisham added that despite improvement in the present or future, facilities that are found to be in violation will still be held accountable for their past actions.
“While those improvements were meaningful and happened in the moment that they should, we should be outraged that it took us being present. Imagine what the conditions were before,” she said. “They had no intention, I assure you, of staffing up or caring for those residents. It’s criminal.”
“We are not going to let you off the hook for what you did before,” she added.
The issues are partially caused by low staffing and lack of training for personal aides and certified nurse’s aides. In the future, the government may reevaluate what it takes to be licensed to work in an assisted living home.
In the past, the governor said, in order to be an administrator of assisted living, “all you needed to be was 18. No training, nothing. And we haven’t moved far enough away from that last thing.”
Low pay for employees also affects quality and quantity of staffing, Lujan Grisham said.
“You don’t train them, support them, you don’t help families—this is exactly what happens,” she said.
Incentivizing young people to become certified nurse’s aides and to undergo thorough training, along with spreading the word about the Ombudsman Program, can help improve overall conditions, Lujan Grisham said.
“We want the residents to know they are not forgotten. They’re not forgotten. We know, we see you, we hear you, we want things to improve, we’re coming,” she said.