Nursing Home

A newly released report from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services concludes owners of a north St. Louis nursing home put residents and staff at risk when they abruptly shut the facility down in December.

Missouri and Illinois rank last in the nation in hours of care nursing home residents receive from workers each day. Advocates for nursing home residents say the Biden administration's plans to call for increased staffing could help residents.

St. Louis County nursing homes reported a big increase in coronavirus cases in January, the highest in nearly a year. County health officials recorded 968 cases at nursing homes last month, up from 262 cases in December.

Two more St. Louis area nursing homes under similar ownership have a history of citations from federal regulators.

As Gov. JB Pritzker attempts to overhaul how the state reimburses nursing homes with Medicaid patients — a move they say will engender more accountability and equity — an unpublished report paints a complicated picture that neither fully bolsters Pritzker’s argument for an overhaul nor the resistance from the nursing home industry warning its cash-poor facilities will close en masse.

Rudi Heider, a retired chemist and professor, has seen a lot in his lifetime. At 107, he’s lived through the Spanish Flu, two world wars and now the…