COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — A troubled nursing home in Collierville is getting more complaints but is also seeing some changes with a new owner.
Poplar Oaks Rehabilitation and Healthcare has been fined in the past after regulators found, among many things, the nursing home didn’t property report abuse allegations.
Jo Ann Henderson said she doesn’t have fond memories of being in Poplar Oaks.
“You feel like you’re in prison or something, I don’t know. It’s just not a good feeling,” she said.
Henderson said in her month-long stay last year, workers were rough with her and often ignored her.
“You could call them and they wouldn’t come or nothing.”
She and her daughter wanted to speak about the conditions after seeing WREG’s story on a different patient sent to the hospital with bad bruising.
“And now she’s all, it’s infected and stuff and she can`t open it. So I’m like, it’s like real bad,” said Bernard, talking about her mother.
They filed a police report for that case, saying the stories of what happened don’t add up.
We’ve heard from several families alleging abuse and neglect to their loved ones at the one-star nursing home.
Henderson’s daughter said she’d visit every day and was regularly upset by what she saw.
“Mom laid in her urine for a whole night. Several times. I’d come in every day and she’d be laying in her urine,” said Theresa Reed.
She says workers would ignore her when she asked for fresh linens, so sometimes, she’d have to do it herself.
“They never cleaned the room, but maybe once or twice mopped the floor. They never cleaned the bathroom.”
Henderson was there for a month after she got a trach put in.
She has COPD and congestive heart failure. She’d been in several facilities before, but this one shook her and her loved ones up.
“She just said she was scared to say anything because of the way they treated her and we told her she didn’t have to worry about it, she wasn’t going to ever go back there.”
Poplar Oaks changed ownership in October and is now named Collierville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
The new owner is listed as ClearView Healthcare. The business license shows the principal office is in New Jersey.
It’s the same address listed for the Midtown Center for Health and Rehabilitation’s principal office — another one-star nursing home in our area.
The Midtown Center was fined more than $32,000 in 2016 after a state inspection found, among other things, workers not following pressure ulcer care plans. It caused patients’ conditions to worsen.
Their state inspections have improved, but families hope to see much more progress, especially in Collierville.
“I think they need to close it down and then start all over because it’s going to get worse. I feel like it is,” said Jo Ann Henderson.
We reached out to the state health department to see if any of these complaints are being looked into. A spokesperson said they can’t confirm nor deny pending investigations.
We also reached out to the new owner for the Collierville nursing home and are working to find out what’s being done to improve conditions.
