Tennessee elder home stashed woman in 'storage' room to hide her from cops, inspectors

Brett Kelman | USA TODAY Network - Tennessee

An elder care home in a Memphis suburb has been ordered to stop accepting new patients after employees stashed an off-the-books resident in what was described as a storage closet in an attempt to hide her from police and state inspectors.

Inspection records also say employees failed to elevate the legs of another resident, which led to her developing an ulcer due to lack of blood circulation. That resident died within a month of being transferred out of the facility.

These alarming incidents occurred at Caring Estates, an eight-bed home for the aged in Arlington, Tennessee, that first opened in 2010. The Tennessee Department of Health announced this week that the facility has been barred from accepting new residents. The home can continue to operate with its current residents but is now under the scrutiny of a state-appointed monitor.

The suspension is the result of a September investigation, involving both police and state health inspectors, which revealed multiple violations at the facility, according to inspection documents obtained by The Tennessean. Of those violations, the strangest involved a female patient – identified only as Resident No. 1 – who supposedly didn’t live there at all.

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The search for Resident No. 1

The inspection documents state that the investigation into Caring Estates began on Sept. 18 after the Bartlett Police Department received a complaint about the care of Resident No. 1. A police detective went to Caring Estates to investigate, but was told by an administrator that this woman “was not a resident” and would come for day care only occasionally. Suspicious, a detective double-checked with a hospice company that had treated the woman, and the company confirmed that the woman did in fact reside at Caring Estates.

The following day, this discrepancy triggered a visit from a state inspector, who toured the home in search of Resident #1. Records say the inspector first checked the facility’s living room and kitchen, then spotted a closed door down a hallway.

The inspector asked what was behind the door.

“Storage,” an employee responded, documents state.

The inspector then opened the door, discovering an elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair at a table.

The Caring Estates employee then allegedly gave a fake name for the elderly woman, but the woman introduced herself with her real name – matching the name in the initial complaint to police. The woman said she had been living at Caring Estates for about nine months, but was recently moved into this room without explanation.

“Someone said I had a bed sore, someone made it up,” the woman told the inspector, according to the state records. “I’ve been living here since the first of the year.”

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Medical records unavailable for Caring Estates patients

State records say that Caring Estates employees later attempted to escort Resident No. 1 into a van and transfer her out of the facility twice during the inspection but were stopped by police. Records also say that the woman was absent from a Caring Estates resident roster and that employees said they kept no medical records for her.

Caring Estates also claimed it kept no medical records for another patient – a 90-year-old blind woman – who received inadequate care while at the home, state officials say. According to the investigation documents, the woman’s legs were supposed to be elevated to prevent swelling, but the home failed to do so, leading to her developing a “stasis ulcer.” The woman was transferred to a hospital for treatment, then moved into a different long-term care facility, but died within a month of leaving Caring Estates.

No Caring Estates employees are named in the inspection documents obtained by The Tennessean. However, separate state records identify the facility administrator as Eshonishunetta Knight.

Neither Knight nor any other Caring Estates employee responded to a request for comment on this story. A message left at the facility on Thursday was not returned.

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Brett Kelman is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8287 or at brett.kelman@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman.