Onondaga Hill, NY — Van Duyn Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing has been added to a federal list of the 88 worst nursing homes nationwide.
The Onondaga Hill facility replaces another Syracuse nursing home, Bishop Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, which was removed from the so-called Special Focus Facility list after 3 1/2 years.
That one big Syracuse nursing home made it off the list, only to be replaced by another one here, shows just how troubled the local nursing home infrastructure is.
New York State is allowed three slots on the list of the nation’s worst nursing homes, which is maintained by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Nursing homes on the list face heightened scrutiny and the prospect of closure if care doesn’t improve.
For several years now, Van Duyn has been on a larger federal list of substandard nursing homes.
Van Duyn’s neglectful care in recent years has included allowing a resident to accidentally hang herself, failing to help a diabetic who died from low blood sugar and dropping two residents off at county welfare offices after hours instead of ensuring they had a safe place to go.
The for-profit Bishop had been on the list since spring 2022. It was removed in September of this year after a series of improved state inspections following years of documented neglect and suicidal residents.
State and federal officials decided to replace Bishop with Van Duyn, which was named to the list in November.
Van Duyn and Bishop are the second- and third-largest nursing homes in Onondaga County, respectively. In the past decade, each has struggled with patient care and each has come under the scrutiny of the state Attorney General’s Office.
Van Duyn, next to Community General Hospital, has 513 beds and Bishop, on James Street, has 440, though only half of Bishop’s beds have been filled in recent years. Together, they comprise nearly one-third of the county’s nursing home capacity.
Van Duyn was previously on the national list of bad nursing homes in 2011, during the final months of county ownership. It was sold to its current owners in 2012 with the promise that care would improve.
But a state attorney general’s investigation in recent years has found at least five residents died and 40 others have been injured due to neglect. State inspectors faulted Van Duyn for dumping two residents outside closed welfare offices.
Earlier this year, Van Duyn’s owners, Efraim Steif and Uri Koenig, settled with the AG’s office for $12 million, with $10 million going to a resident improvement fund, to avoid a potential lawsuit. That’s the deal that included independent health and financial monitors.
“We are embracing our Special Focus Facility status as a catalyst for positive change,” Van Duyn spokeswoman Kerry Gallagher said in a statement to syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. “We are working closely with an independent health monitor to provide objective independent oversight and guidance.”
It’s a similar road to one that Bishop travelled a few years earlier.
Bishop was raided by the AG’s office in 2017 and investigated for improperly pocketing money that should have gone to resident care.
It was sold in 2018 to Edward Farbenblum, a Downstate nursing home administrator, who delivered on improvements early on. But care deteriorated and it was added to the nation’s-worst list five years later after a resident died falling out a window.
