SPRINGFIELD, IL – The Illinois Department of Public Health has fined Royal Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center $30,000 (Statement of Violation), for failure to meet the needs of its residents and has given notice it intends to revoke the facility's license. The 234-bed skilled care facility is located at 900 Royal Heights Road in Belleville.

The owners of Royal Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center have requested a hearing to contest the Department's actions. As a result, the Department's move to revoke the facility's license will be delayed until a hearing has been held. A hearing date has not been scheduled.

During an annual survey and complaint and incident investigations, Department investigators found the facility failed to implement its procedures for abuse prevention by not prohibiting residents from violating the sexual rights of other residents; to properly investigate and report inappropriate sexual relations between residents; to ensure physically aggressive residents were provided structured services and programs; to prevent residents from leaving the center unsupervised; and to notify the proper authorities in an emergency situation.

Examples of deficiencies found during the Department's investigations include –

• A sexually active male resident repeatedly entered a female resident's room to have sexual relations. Staff were aware of the behavior, but did nothing to deter him. • Female residents walked around the center undressed and residents openly engaged in sexual activities while staff observed.
• A male resident stabbed a female resident's arm with a fork. Even though the woman expressed fear of the man, who was in a relationship with the woman's roommate, to staff, she was not moved to a different room and the man was not prohibited from entering her room.
• A female resident, who had been involved in an altercation earlier in the day and knocked down another resident's mother, grabbed a knife off the dining room table and threw it at a group of residents hitting one in the arm. The abusive resident was allowed to roam the facility until the police arrived an hour later and escorted her to an ambulance.
• Staff found three knives hidden in a resident's room.
• Surveyors learned staff members had intentionally given prescribed medications to the wrong residents, had been seen selling marijuana to residents and had given personal medications to residents.
• A resident, who threw a chair through her window and cut her arm with the glass, was hospitalized for evaluation. This incident occurred two days after the resident broke a different window in her room, cut her arm with the glass and expressed to staff members that she wanted to hurt herself.
• After an employee found a bomb threat, he failed to notify anyone and left it on the front desk. When the facility administrator became aware of the bomb threat, she did not evacuate the center or immediately call 9-1-1.
• A male resident left the center unnoticed and was returned after he asked the Shrine Security Department, which is four miles from the facility, for assistance. Thirteen days later, the man again left the facility, setting off the alarm, and did not return. The facility did not report this, or 10 other resident elopements, to the Department.
• Surveyors observed several instances when door alarms were shut off and facility employees were not nearby to make sure residents did not leave. Staff also indicated they turned off door alarms to allow residents to go outside to smoke.

Royal Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center was fined $5,000 in August 2002 for failing to prevent abuse of a resident by a staff member.

In addition to the state actions against Royal Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services suspended facility participation in the Medicaid and Medicare program on October 7, 2002, due to lack of supervision, inadequate programming for residents with mental illnesses and insufficient interventions to prevent sexual and physical abuse of residents.