A South Jersey nursing home is suspending admissions after the state found multiple health violations.

Some of those violations at Medford Care Center in Burlington, which is a long term care facility, included no hot water, trash buildup, staffing shortages and the lack of financial ability to meet basic standards of care and needs, according to NJ Advance Media investigative reporter Sue Livio.

Patients weren't fed enough food because of unpaid groceries.

And if that isn't hard enough to hear, she also discovered in her reporting that the person in charge hadn't been seen for months to discuss more.

She joins me now.

Sue, great reporting.

Thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

So take me through your reporting.

What were the violations and how long has this neglect been going on?

As far as I can tell, reading the state health Department violation reports, they've been in there for.

Inspectors have been in there since the summertime, but they just went back to do a re-inspection and to follow up on some complaints last week.

And lo and behold, they find that people haven't been showering because the water isn't the right temperature.

It's too cool.

There's issues with not enough food in the place.

They're making substitutions for menu items and a lot of the menu menus are made up in advance or reflect, you know, dietary needs of the residents who live there.

There's also issues where, you know, everybody gets a an allowance afforded to them by Medicaid.

And the owner is supposed to have a bond to insure that money and that bond has expired.

So those are just some of the the issues.

And immediately, well, this the health department declared an immediate jeopardy, meaning that the conditions are so severe that the health and safety are at risk for the 93 people who live at the Medford Care Center.

Yeah, you know, hearing all these violations, really, it's heartbreaking and it's unbelievable.

And I want to clarify, especially for viewers watching how many residents were affected by these dangerous conditions.

And do we know the ages of these residents?

So the according to the state documents, there are 93 people there and they have been suspended, meaning they cannot accept anybody new since last week.

And we don't have particulars.

But the condition is were so dire that the health department took the rare step of declaring an immediate jeopardy, meaning that everyone is affected by the virus, could be affected by the violations that are going on and immediately ordered the owners to hire consultants to handle dietary, the menus, the food distribution hire and consultant to be an administrator.

Because, according to the health Department, the administrator slash owner had been on site for months.

Of course, I did speak with the gentleman who owns the facility.

He says it's a family business, been his family for four decades.

And of course, he called a lot of this and exaggerate.

Right.

And that he was getting the boiler fix to address the water issue, the temperature issue.

He claimed that that was a problem, but not every day.

And it was just a matter of washing clothes at the right time.

I don't know.

He he basically said that we have enough food.

The requirement is you have to have three days of food in place.

The health department said they didn't have that.

He says they.

Did.

So he basically.

At this point.

Denied all the allegations and is not taking accountability.

He says it's not perfect, but it's he said that some of these allegations were exaggerated.

But he did sound like the that he was working on the requirements to in order to get admissions restored.

The health department confirmed that that there were plans in place, but that they would not lift the admissions suspension until the consultants were in place and the water was fine and the food was fine.

So I'm.

Wondering I'm.

Wondering how long will it take to clean up this mess?

Well, certain things have to happen immediately.

You know, that's when there an immediate jeopardy violation.

They want to see, you know, progress right away.

Right.

So so by next week, according to the owner, he thinks that he'll be able to get everything squared away.

But I know from how the health department does its job, they'll go back and re inspect and they've been on site since the weekend, really since the end of last week.

But throughout the weekend, making sure that people have enough to eat, that they're healthy, they have not moved anybody yet.

So things are sort of in a holding pattern.

But yeah, this is this is an accumulation over months where there had been unpaid bills, unpaid energy bills, the boiler, the plumber wasn't paid.

There were some lawsuits outstanding.

So it really came to a head last Thursday.

Again, amazing reporting.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for your interest.