One patient from the Alzheimer’s unit of Britthaven of Chapel Hill nursing home died…six more have been hospitalized after opiates were found in their system…three others were hospitalized as a precaution. You know what happened to the staff? According to a report in the Raleigh News & Observer, they were put on paid leave. Paid. Kind of like a vacation.

Managers from Britthaven’s corporate offices were brought in to investigate. We truly hope that some drastic action will be taken, but we’re not holding our collective breath. This nursing home is one of the facilities that failed to show significant improvement after being tagged by Medicare as a “Special Focus Facility,” which is a gentle way of saying that they provide substandard care, and that serious problems persisted for a long time. (See our earlier blog about this rating.)

According to the newspaper, criminal investigation has not been launched.

We’ll keep you posted on further developments.