Ahead of hurricane Ida, 843 nursing home residents from seven homes were crammed into an Independence, La. warehouse.
The conditions they suffered in the following days were horrific. Residents slept on mattresses on the floor, deflated blow-up beds, their chairs or the cement.
Some were forced to lie in their own feces for hours, crying out for assistance. A resident told the New York Times they had to relieve themselves in buckets; others described a group of indoor Port-a-Potties.
As the hurricane bore down, rain flooded the building, leaving nurses to frantically mop. Residents were left without air conditioning and adequate oxygen supplies, and Independence suffered heavy damage from the storm.
Fifteen evacuated nursing home residents died, and dozens more were hospitalized. Coroners declared five of those deaths “storm-related” and continue to investigate the cause of others.
Bob Dean, the owner of these seven nursing homes and several others, told WAFB, “We only had five deaths within the six days, and normally with 850 people you’ll have a couple a day, so we did really good with taking care of people.”
Dean’s lack of remorse is disturbing, to say the least.
The inhumane conditions these residents suffered is a troubling illustration of the way elderly people are too often treated in American culture—hidden from sight without dignity or adequate care.
The Louisiana Department of Health approved Dean’s evacuation plans prior to the storm and failed to intervene before it was too late. The LDH has since revoked the licenses of the seven evacuated homes.
Dean has trifled with the safety of his residents for years, and the state has done little to hold him accountable.
In 1998, two of Dean’s residents died following evacuation from Hurricane George. Dean transported residents in a bus with no air conditioning to a building that did not even meet fire codes. Dean was fined only $1,500 by the LDH.
In another incident, a woman in one of Dean’s homes suffered hundreds of fire ant bites. The nurse who discovered her said the ants crawled into the resident’s nose and eyes. For this horrific event, Dean was fined only $900.
How can the state put so little value on the life and safety of these residents? And why, after these incidents of disturbing neglect and disregard for human life, has Dean been allowed to continue operating nursing homes?
Dean is not in the nursing home business to provide care and comfort to people at the end of their lives. He’s in it for a buck.
The state cannot entrust the elderly with those who view them as profit-makers instead of people.
Though Dean is apparently unwilling to spend his wealth providing his residents with a modicum of decency, he has shelled out over a quarter of a million dollars in political contributions over the years.
Dean gifted $42,500 to Gov. John Bel Edwards in his re-election bid and $25,000 in support of Sen. John Kennedy. According to the Advocate, the PAC supporting Sen. Kennedy has since refunded the $25,000 donation. The senator had previously accepted a $5,000 donation from Dean in 1999.
The people of Louisiana must ask difficult questions about how years of political donations may have shielded Dean from accountability.
After all, Dean appears to be a deeply self-interested man; why would he donate to these politicians if there wasn’t something in it for him? A man with a troubled history of unethical conditions believed he would benefit from certain elected officials of both major parties being in office. Louisiana residents should ask why that is, and what that says about those politicians.
It’s also concerning how Dean’s multiple businesses provided him an outsized avenue for political influence. A man who showed no remorse for deaths that occurred on his watch has a greater political voice than the vast majority of the state simply because he is very wealthy.
The story of Dean shines a critical light on several deep-rooted American issues: our treatment of the elderly, the failure of regulatory oversight and, certainly, the brokenness of campaign finance.
Dean is under investigation by Attorney General Jeff Landry, and hopefully he will finally be held accountable.
But this can’t just end with Dean.
These tragedies require a thorough autopsy of the systems that enabled years of neglect against Louisiana’s most vulnerable residents.
Claire Sullivan is a 19-year-old coastal environmental science sophomore from Southbury, CT.
