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Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Care Center Faces State Probes

ALBANY - A troubled Bronx nursing home and its operator are the targets of a three-pronged investigation by the state attorney general’s office, the Daily News has learned.

“There appear to be an array of violations in different areas that are not typical,” a knowledgeable source said.

Investigators are probing whether Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Care Center committed Medicaid fraud by paying an employee at a nearby hospital to refer long-term patients to the facility, the source said.

Federal law prohibits such payments.

A second aspect is a result of a recent criminal referral from the state Workers’ Compensation Board, which claims the nursing home has not had workers’ compensation insurance to cover its employees in 13 months, the source said.

The Workers’ Compensation Board last Friday issued a stop-work order that would close the home unless it proves by Monday that it has coverage and pays the board $38,000 in fines.

Meanwhile, the source said the state attorney general’s charities bureau has been looking into questionable loans made by two registered charities - the Chaya Foundation and the CLF Foundation - run by Kingsbridge Heights owner Helen Sieger.

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Obama Cites Case of Bronx Nursing Aide 

Senator Barack Obama was giving an address by satellite to the Service Employees International Union convention on Wednesday, when he unexpectedly began talking about a nursing home worker from New York City who died last month.

The worker, Audrey Smith-Campbell, died on May 13 after she had an asthma attack. Her family said the attack was caused by her employer cutting off the workers’ health insurance and the resulting inability to afford her asthma medication.

Ms. Smith-Campbell and 220 other workers at the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Care Center in the Bronx went on strike on Feb. 20 to protest the nursing home’s decision to stop paying for their health insurance. The strike continues after more than three months.

Ms. Smith-Campbell, who had worked at the home for 29 years as a certified nursing assistant, was known as one of the most dedicated strikers, picketing day after day. Describing her as a “66-year-old grandmother,” Mr. Obama said, “For 82 straight days she kept marching, she kept standing strong, right up to the day that an asthma attack took her life.”

Her daughter, Yvonne Young, said she had an asthma attack on Mother’s Day, shortly after she picketed that day. She died the next day. Ms. Young said her mother simply could not afford the $600 a month for asthma medication once the health insurance was cut off.

“We cannot accept this kind of injustice in the United States of America,” Mr. Obama told the 2,000 delegates at the S.E.I.U. convention in Puerto Rico. “We cannot tolerate this outrage of workers having to go on strike to get the benefits they promised.”

The nursing home’s owner, Helen Sieger, accused the union — 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East — of “using this woman’s death to gain support.”

“This shameless act screams of desperation and guilt,” she said.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama, now the presumptive Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, who has the union’s endorsement, said, “Audrey is no longer with us, but her spirit is with us.”

He added, “It’s driving me on this campaign.”

Mrs. Sieger sought to hold the union responsible for the termination of health benefits, saying that she had offered 1199 an interim agreement that would have offered health insurance.

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Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Caregivers Begin Strike

Caregivers at a Bronx nursing home hit the picket line yesterday.

Key among the issues raised by the health care workers - no health care.

Workers at Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Center at 3400 Cannon Place in the west Bronx have been working without a contract for several years, according to their union, the Service Employees International Union 1199.But what pushed the 220 workers to walk out at 6 a.m. was their recent loss of health benefits.

Late last year, just before the holidays, the Kingsbridge nursing home unilaterally ended employee health benefits, suddenly stripping the workers and their children of their health insurance.

The nursing home is $2.5 million in arrears to the workers’ health benefit fund, and as a result, workers and their families lost their health care coverage completely last November.

The union says the facility’s owner, Helen Sieger, has refused to negotiate in good faith to resolve the dispute, thus forcing the strike.

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4,000 Bronx Building Workers Looking For More $$ & New Contract

Residents in 500 Bronx buildings are facing another nervous wait-and-see game, as building workers and landlords have begun talks on a new contract.

With their current contract expiring March 14, talks were underway for nearly 4,000 residential property service Bronx workers, represented by Local 32BJ, and major Bronx employers, including the Bronx Realty Advisory Board and top independent employers.

“Wages for Bronx members have failed to keep pace with the rising costs of housing, food and transportation over the last three years,” said Kyle Bragg, vice president of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union.

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