Sunrise: Quadrangle’s License ‘Reinstated’

Nearly a month after the commonwealth’s Department of Public Welfare (DPW) due to what the DPW at the time called “gross incompetence, negligence and misconduct on the part of officials at Quadrangle” in regards to three former employees who allegedly abused a 78-year-old dementia patient, the Haverford facility has its license restored, according to the parent company’s press release.

“Sunrise Senior Living, Inc. … (Thursday) announced that it has entered into an agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW), under which Sunrise's license to operate the personal care home that is part of its Quadrangle Continuing Care Retirement Community in Haverford, Pennsylvania, has been reinstated after it had been revoked on April 29, 2011, following an isolated incident at the community,” the press release from Sunrise Senior Living stated. 

The “isolated incident” is the alleged abuse that authorities say took place at the Haverford facility, where Lois McCallister, 78 and has severe dementia, was allegedly forced to go topless in her room at the facility by three former Quadrangle care staff, , and , and was mocked by them in one incident on March 31 of this year. Video of that incident can be .

Their on Thursday will be continued on June 16.

DPW on April 29 and Sunrise filed an appeal on the same day.

Michael Race, director of communications of DPW, returned an email from the Haverford-Havertown Patch confirming that Quadrangle’s license has been restored for the next six months.

“DPW reached a legal settlement agreement, formalized this (Thursday afternoon,) with Quadrangle's operator (Sunrise) to issue a six-month provisional license (as opposed to a standard, one-year license) and they have agreed to make some major changes to Quadrangle's operations under the terms of the agreement,” Race wrote in an email late Thursday night.

Some of those changes are: 

• A designated manager for each shift responsible for managing the dementia care unit.
• Those managers must take a leadership training course and annually afterwards.
• All staff members of the dementia care unit will receive performance evaluations from their immediate supervisors to assess their skills and empathy towards the patients.
• A new interview technique to determine if applicants being interviewed for a position at Quadrangle has experience, skills and empathy, among other things, to properly care for the patients.

A copy of the provisional license and settlement agreement can be found in PDF form below the pictures.

“This agreement will allow Quadrangle to continue operating under continued monitoring. If at any time DPW feels they are not working in good faith to abide by the agreement, the provisional license can be revoked,” Race stated in his email. “Our primary concern is, and will remain, the safety and well-being of residents, and we feel this agreement is in the best interests of those residents.”

Sunrise Senior Living’s press release does not mention in detail of the alleged abuse, the new DPW agreement requirements or a DPW report, which accompanies this article below the pictures in PDF form, that stated that Quadrangle did not fully cooperate with the department as required by law.

Race said during a with Patch that Quadrangle did not report the alleged abuse of the 78-year-old resident as required by law.

“If DPW had known of the abuse, possibly this horrific abuse, which was caught on video tape, could have been prevented,” he said at the time.

However, in a , Sunrise CEO Mark Ordan said that Quadrangle was responsive to the DPW.

“We report incidents. We are fully cooperative. The second we heard about this incident, I reflexively called the police. I reflexively called the family. We reached out immediately,” Ordan said at the time. “So if I were trying to hide, I would have better ways to do it.”

The press release did not state how Quadrangle’s license was restored or of requirements placed on the facility by DPW.

Meghan Lublin, Sunrise’s Vice President of Marketing & Communications, returned Patch's Thursday night's email seeking comment.

"At this time, we have nothing further to share beyond what we provided in yesterday’s press release," she wrote in an email early Friday evening.