To the editor:

The Sullivan County Adult Care Center is now rated as a 1-star facility on the Medicare Home Health Compare website, with a little red hand symbol next to the star. That red hand is a consumer alert indicating quote “that the facility has been cited for potential issues related to abuse.” I’ve actually never seen that little red hand before on the website. There’s not much lower that facility can go before the DOH closes it down, and I think that little red hand is waving bye bye to InfiniteCare’s application for a Certificate of Need to lease the facility. I believe that when Mr. Doherty and his friends joined our legislature, the Adult Care Center was a 4 star facility, and now it’s reduced to one star with that nasty warning sign next to it. Incredibly, in the two weeks since the New York State Department of Health Survey team came to the facility, the patient census is up to around 110, as InfiniteCare continues to intake residents in order to milk the facility for every penny it can get, at the expense of the residents and staff. Maybe the newest residents didn’t check that website first.

Instead of adding a new member to the board, the Sullivan County Legislature should be dissolving the Sunset Lake LDC (the legal body which owns the Adult Care Center now) and returning the nursing home to county ownership and management. At the very least you would be saving the county the almost half a million yearly we are now paying in taxes for the nursing home which was tax exempt before Mr. Doherty decided to mess around with it. I imagine the IDA would be willing to part with its contract to pay those taxes, and then we’d only be out the million or so that we’ve paid for Mr. Doherty’s folly so far. Or the LDC could get their pricey lawyer (at the taxpayers’ expense) busy putting out a new RFP for a new management company and start the expensive wheels turning to wave bye-bye to Infinite Care before they totally burn the place down.  

Lise Kennedy

Neversink