Management at a South Florida nursing home where eight people died after Hurricane Irma knocked out its power tried to get a hold of Governor Rick Scott for 36 hours before patients began to succumb to the sweltering heat, it was reported on Friday.
The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills made headlines nationwide after eight of its patients died days after Irma devastated Florida, depriving the facility of air conditioning as temperatures outside hovered around 90 degrees.
The eight people are believed to have died from heat-related causes.
Now it is being claimed that the executives running the nursing home tried to get a hold of the governor by dialing a hotline that he created especially for emergencies affecting healthcare centers in the hurricane-ravaged state, according to CBS4 TV.
Management at a South Florida nursing home where eight people died after Hurricane Irma knocked out its power tried to get a hold of Governor Rick Scott (above) for 36 hours before patients began to succumb to the sweltering heat
The Rehabilitation Center in Hollywood (pictured) – the Florida nursing home where eight people after it was left without air conditioning for days following Hurricane Irma – was previously cited by the state for having generator and maintenance issues
Janice Connelly of Hollywood, sets up a makeshift memorial in memory of the senior citizens who died in the heat at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills
The hurricane made landfall in South Florida on Sunday. At around 3pm that day, the facility lost the electrical source that is responsible for powering its air conditioning system.
Less than an hour later, administrators at the facility notified Florida Power and Light, CBS4 reported.
In response to the emergency request, FPL said that it would dispatch crews the next morning to fix the problem.
The crews never arrived.
More than 100 people had to be evacuated, many via stretcher (pictured) from the Rehabilitation Center, in Hollywood Hills, on Wednesday morning
The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills as patients are were evacuated after a loss of air conditioning due to Hurricane Irma on Wednesday
Authorities are still investigating the causes of death, which could be heat exhaustion in the elderly patients or carbon monoxide poisoning from generators (pictured: a patient is rolled out of the nursing home on a stretcher and taken to Memorial Regional Hospital)
The nursing home was being powered by back up generators while they waited for the local utility company to restore the main power after the hurricane, but staff revealed the generators were not being used to power the AC (people were evacuated from the Rehabilitation Center, in Hollywood, on Wednesday morning)
On Monday evening, a nursing home official dialled the emergency hotline provided by Scott. It went straight to voicemail.
The official, Natasha Anderson, left a voicemail saying that the nursing facility needed ‘immediate assistance’ from the power company to restore power to the air conditioning system.
Scott’s office said that a state official in the Department of Health returned Anderson’s call.
The official told the nursing home that they should dial 911 for help if they were in distress.
The nursing home also reached out to the emergency operations center in Tallahassee, which said that the FPL repair order would be ‘escalated.’
But by Tuesday, there was still no change. Nursing home officials repeatedly called the FPL, which promised help but nothing came of those promises.
As the situation grew worse, Anderson placed two additional calls to the cell phone hotline number announced by the governor.
Scenes outside the South Florida nursing home where eight people have died after the building lost power during Hurricane Irma
Fire crews and police were called out to the Rehabilitation Center in Hollywood Hills, Hollywood, Florida this morning (pictured is a fire truck outside the center)
Scenes outside a South Florida nursing home where eight people have died after the building’s power and AC went down during Hurricane Irma
Later that afternoon, a state official at the Agency for Healthcare Administration called the nursing home and asked for an update on the situation.
The nursing home administrators replied that they needed urgent help from the power company.
In the three days that elapsed between the hurricane’s arrival and the fatalities, officials at the nursing home made up to 50 phone calls to the power company.
By 1am on Wednesday, patients at the nursing home began to show signs that the lack of air conditioning was having an adverse impact on their health.
At 5am, patients began to die. An hour later, all of the patients left were evacuated.
When asked for comment, Scott’s office said: ‘Every call made to the governor from facility management was referred to the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Florida Department of Health and quickly returned.’
The governor’s office denied that the nursing home communicated to it that patients were at risk.
The Florida Department of Health also released a statement, saying: ‘The tragic and senseless loss at Hollywood Hills Rehabilitation Center is the subject of a criminal homicide investigation by law enforcement.
‘Let’s be clear – this facility is located across the street from one of Florida’s largest hospitals, which never lost power and had fully operating facilities.
‘It is 100 percent the responsibility of healthcare professionals to preserve life by acting in the best interest of the health and well-being of their patients.’
Flora Mitchell (pictured) arrived at the home trying to find out what happened to her 58-year-old sister, Vonda Wilson, a stroke patient who lived there for about 10 years. She said she last heard from her sister two days ago and found out the air conditioning was not working
Photos of inside the nursing home show a fairly basic set up with shared bedrooms which could have become unbearably hot at the temperatures increased without AC
FPL also released a statement, saying: ‘What we know now is that a portion of the facility did, in fact, have power, that there was a hospital with power across the parking lot from this facility and that the nursing home was required to have a permanently installed, operational generator.’
‘In March, we met with Broward county officials to identify top critical facilities that require priority power restoration.
‘While this nursing home was given a level of priority, in working with county officials, other critical facilities, such as hospitals and 911 centers, were identified as higher priorities.
‘As we emphasized before, during and after Hurricane Irma, we urge our customers who have electricity dependent medical needs, and who don’t have power to call 911, if it is a life-threatening situation.’
The state government ordered the nursing home suspended from the state Medicaid program on Thursday.
More than 140 residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills were evacuated on Wednesday after fire and rescue crews and medical staff from a nearby hospital found many of the facility’s residents suffering from dehydration, heat stress and breathing difficulties.
City officials in Hollywood, Florida, said the nursing home had continued to operate with little or no air conditioning after power to the building was disrupted by Hurricane Irma, which struck Florida on Sunday.
Officials have said the interior of the building was extremely hot, and that staff were scrambling in vain to lower temperatures with fans and portable cooling units.
Police have since sealed off the building and with the assistance of state and federal regulators opened a criminal investigation into the loss of life.
The state Agency for Health Care Administration on Wednesday ordered the Rehabilitation Center officially closed to new admissions.
The new order suspending the facility from participation in Medicaid – a federal-state medical program for the poor, aged and disabled – is effective immediately.
The nursing home fatalities brought Florida’s death toll from Irma and its aftermath to 31. Seven more have died in Georgia and South Carolina, combined, and 43 were killed in the Caribbean.