KENT COUNTY, Mich. — New concerns have surfaced regarding the West Michigan long-term care facility that became the subject of a months-long investigation by the 13 Help Team after numerous residents and loved ones came forward.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office was in the midst of a review of complaints it had received against the SKLD facility on East Beltline in light of our reporting, where we've detailed multiple claims of neglect, quality of life issues, unnecessary amputations and in one case, the allegedly preventable death of a resident.
The family of Anthony Traxler, the first to relate what they claimed to be chronic problems within the facility, recently reached out with new concerns and thanked the 13 Help Team for signs of progress in their ongoing fight to secure better care.
Diagnosed with MS, Traxler requires a specialized electric wheelchair to remain mobile.
Doctors, his mother, Jan Roberts related, had prescribed such a wheelchair some three years earlier.
She initially believed her son would have the chair within a month, yet several months into the family’s wait, Roberts began to suspect the process may have stalled.
“I kept asking questions,” she related. “Why isn't this coming? What's the holdup?”
They’d find out what allegedly caused the bottleneck about a year after the chair was originally prescribed.
“SKLD,” she said. “They were supposed to pay their share.”
Roberts’ frequent phone calls and voicemails to SKLD administrators, she recalled, up to that point, had gone largely unreturned.
While visiting her son inside the facility shortly thereafter, she claims an employee took her aside, informing her SKLD had no intention of covering the cost, then, approximately $3,000.
Kim Gibson is a friend of the family.
“I felt that Tony needed this because I felt that anybody needed independence from being in a bed 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Gibson related.
Out of obvious options and without the money to pay for it herself, Gibson stepped in to see whether soliciting donations, raising the necessary funding would be sufficient to set the process back into motion.
“So, it became my passion,” she said.
The passion and the effort ultimately paid dividends, successfully raising the amount required.
Yet, a full two years into the ordeal to restore Traxler’s mobility, life again, unfortunately, had other plans.
“He needed to be refitted for the chair, he'd need to be completely retrained,” Gibson explained. “At that point, quite a blow after it's already been paid for.”
Traxler, meanwhile, was in the midst of a decline, with family members alleging neglect, claiming his caregivers at SKLD rarely bothered to get him out of bed.
The specialized wheelchair, based upon its future-occupant’s changing needs, would need to be customized further, requiring in excess of $3900 in additional components—more money than was in the budget.
“Back to square one,” Gibson related. “Tony's without his chair.”
Fed up with the bottlenecks, the excuses and more often, the silence, she finally charged the balance to a personal credit card. Shortly thereafter, another surprise:
“I was called actually by SKLD and told that they were going to pay for the chair and we kind of laughed about it,” she noted.
The offer seemed promising though, Gibson said, after months of denials, promising to reimburse her and look into the family’s concerns.
A ‘family meeting’-- featuring Traxler, his family and a large number of staff members--held following that conversation, Roberts and Gibson said, had addressed several issues and some small measure of hope began to creep back in.
Yet, after submitting the invoice for reimbursement, Gibson said, administrators went right back to giving her the cold shoulder.
“I finally got a response… we are not going to reimburse you for that chair… by the administrator,” she related, indicating the facility’s administrator had delivered the bad news. Gibson questioned why then she’d initially been told they’d pay. “Somebody would have needed her permission, I'm sure, to make that phone call to me.”
We shot that interview around 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon and within three hours, received a text message from Gibson explaining that the administrator had again been in touch.
In an email seen by 13 ON YOUR SIDE, SKLD appeared to reverse course, agreeing to cover the cost or reimburse the family, provided it received an updated invoice and that the facility would take delivery of the electric wheelchair when it’s scheduled to arrive on June 20.
The development Wednesday evening followed an inquiry submitted to the SKLD parent company, Illuminate HC, on the family’s behalf Tuesday.
I also forwarded information regarding Traxler’s ordeal to the state attorney general’s office.
It suggested its ongoing review could require several months.
As of this week, we’re aware of at least two residents who had been contacted by special investigators.
Illuminate HC had yet to respond to our latest outreach at the time of publication.
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