This appeal to the Public Health and Health Planning Council (PHHPC) on the certificate of need application for Project #231044 was sent to the PHHPC on March 26, 2024. It is slightly edited.

Before you consider the Certificate of Need request from Infinitecare and/or the Sunset Lake Care Center LLC/LDC, please carefully review all the numerous complaints of neglect, unsafe practices and mismanagement submitted against these managers/consultants over the years—complaints that have been inexplicably ignored while the care and welfare of Sunset Lake ACC residents continue to decline and the facility’s Medicare ratings plummet. 

It took the death of a resident in June 2023 to finally trigger a PHHPC investigation into the complaints of poor practices and substandard conditions there. You would think that with this death and the plethora of other complaints, approving a new CON for Infinitecare would be out of the question. But when the PHHPC issued their decision, they determined that a civil settlement of $32,000 “resolved the issue,” clearing the way for Infinitecare to apply for another CON. How is it possible to buy your way out of responsibility for a wrongful death?

In a recent letter, dated March 11, 2024, five members of the Sullivan County Legislature wrote they wished to “advocate and express our support for approval of Sunset SNF Operations LLC/Sunset Lake Consulting (SUNSET) as the operator (sic) of the Sullivan County Adult Care Center.” [Read the letter at https://bit.ly/3xq1EnS.] They made this endorsement with the full knowledge that it would allow this same slipshod management team to remain in charge, then go on to extol the “remarkable advancements across crucial areas of care,” when the facts are that conditions at Sunset Lake ACC have significantly worsened. 

Just last week, a recurring problem with the facility elevators had a visitor stuck between floors when the last working elevator broke down. Management has known about the sporadic elevator operations for months, but as long as one was working, little or no effort was made to repair the others. For several days, residents were stranded on their floors, with food trays hand-carried up to them in relays. By the time the trays were delivered, the food was stone cold. And with so many inoperative elevators, how exactly are 120-plus residents, not to mention all the staff, to be evacuated in an emergency? Please note the dichotomy between representations of care, staffing levels, overall maintenance and repairs in the legislators’ letter of Mar. 11, 2024, and the two-page, single-space listing of unaddressed, critical issues enumerated in the March 19th letter from the ACC Nursing Staff, who actually work there. [Read this letter at www.bit.ly/43IYLeg ] 

It is hard to understand how county legislators, many of whom ran on promises to take back and restore Sunset Lake ACC to its former excellence, are now doing an about-face and supporting the predatory, for-profit operators who have almost destroyed it. Granting Infinitecare another Certificate of Need only enables them to continue their destructive, neglectful operations. The county needs to take back the Sunset Lake ACC as a county-owned, nonprofit entity, and secure a CON for a new operator—one committed to preserving the ACC for all who need it now and in the future. This is a win-win situation for the county and its residents. Please do the right thing for everyone.

Star D. Hesse is a member of the Sullivan County Senior Legislative Action Committee and is a county resident.