By Healthcare Facilities Today

Crime scene tape hangs over the entrance to Valley Manor Community Care Home, also called Valley Springs Manor, where paramedics rescued residents who had been abandoned by staff and were living in squalor, according to an article on the New York Daily News website.

Fourteen nursing home patients, some of them bedridden, were abandoned at a filthy and unsafe facility closed days before by California social services officials. A skeleton crew including a janitor and a cook had stayed behind, without pay, to look after the patients until they could be placed at other nursing homes, but they became overwhelmed and called 911, according to the article.

The closure occurred when staff at Valley Springs Manor walked out after the California Department of Social Services ordered it closed because of ‘deplorable’ conditions. A spokesman for the agency said the state was responsible for overseeing the shutdown, but could not send staffers in to operate the facility.

"The department worked with Alameda County adult protective services and law enforcement, but the licensee is ultimately responsible for ensuring that there is adequate staff for the care and supervision of the residents," Weston said in a San Francisco Chronicle article.

Read the article.