close up of door handle

The Tennessee Board for Licensing Health Care Facilities has prohibited a residential home for the aged from admitting new residents after a worker allegedly tried to hide a resident in a closet during an inspection and for additional violations.

A special monitor has been appointed to review the operations of the eight-bed Caring Estates in Arlington, TN, the Department of Health said last week in a news release. The home remains open to current residents.

The admissions ban is based on conditions found during a complaint investigation conducted Sept. 19 to 24, according to the department. In a statement of deficiencies and plan of correction obtained by McKnight’s Senior Living, the state said its investigation began after local police received a complaint about the care of a woman identified in the report as “Resident No. 1.”

A police detective visited Caring Estates Sept. 18 and was told that Resident No. 1 only came occasionally for day care and did not live at the home, according to the report. When the detective checked with a hospice company that had treated the woman, however, the company said the woman was a resident at Caring Estates.

A state inspector visited the home the next day and asked for a list of residents. The name of Resident No. 1 was not provided, the inspector said. During a tour of the home, the inspector asked what was behind an unmarked closed door and reportedly was told it was a storage room. Upon opening the door, however, the inspector found a woman sitting in a wheelchair, according to the report.

The inspector asked the employee for the woman’s name and was given a false name, the report said. The resident introduced herself by her real name, which matched the name provided to police in the original complaint. The woman answered several orientation-related questions from the inspector correctly and said she had lived at Caring Estates since the beginning of the year but recently had been moved to the storage area, according to the report.

Caring Estates employees reportedly said they had no medical records for the woman but allowed an unlicensed employee to administer her medications, even though the employee reported not knowing what the medications were, according to the state.

Twice while the inspector was present, employees allegedly tried to transfer Resident No. 1 out of the home but were stopped by police.

Caring Estates also was cited for not keeping medical records and providing inadequate care for another resident, having expired over-the-counter medication and unsecured medication, keeping “a stack” of blank certificates of admission signed by a physician and social worker as well as blank quarterly placement reviews signed by a social worker, and several other violations.

“During the investigation, surveyors found violations of the following standards: administration; admissions, discharges and transfers; personal services; life safety and resident rights,” the department said in the press release.

The board’s order to suspend admissions will remain in effect until conditions have been and continue to remain corrected, according to the body. The home has the right to a hearing before the board or an administrative judge.