After Freeholder Fantasia and I both reported, what we personally were told was going on at the Andover Sub-acute facility the last week of March, our County Health Department called the state asking for help on March 29th. The county, unfortunately, doesn’t have responsibility or authority over these facilities and is dependent on the state in most cases. So reporting to the state at the time was the proper procedure for our health department.
After hearing back from the state that the facility was in full compliance and everything was good, we were obviously disappointed and to be honest angry. Hearing the reports from close friends of the conditions, getting desperate pleas for help from the people working there, how could everything be “Ok." You try not to take these things personal, but hearing the stories and seeing the pain, as a human being, it’s hard not to.
We were frustrated with the process, and what the state was telling us didn’t match up with what we were hearing. Then more messages, and more heart-breaking stories, and more pleas for help. More calls from our health department to the state without results, until the anonymous tip comes in about bodies piling up.
Then we hear the state press conference on April 16th where they seem to lay the blame directly on our county health department. It’s bad enough that government bureaucracy causes delays that can sometimes cost lives, it’s another thing to blame the very people trying desperately to save those lives. I don’t know where the breakdown was, I wouldn’t think that the New Jersey health commissioner would knowingly get on national TV and lie, but someone didn’t tell the truth. Had action been taken after our county health department called on March 29th, we could have saved lives.
Now the important thing is that we fix the problem. Andover Sub-acute has a history of problems, but somehow, they don’t get fixed. This proves a systemic breakdown in our regulatory, checks, and balances process. A system that should be protecting some of our most vulnerable members of the community instead continues to fail them.
I applaud the governor's call to action on this, and I hope the people he charges with this mission follow through. We will ask for answers on why our pleas for help were not answered. We will ask for changes to a system that lets profit come before people. We will ask that our seniors be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve at the time they need it most.
Joshua Hertzberg
Sussex County Freeholder