HospitalInspections.org

The facility failed to ensure that hot water was provided to sinks in the patient rooms.

Findings Include:

During a tour of the 15 functional patient rooms at the facility, on 3/18/11 beginning at about 1:30 p.m., all of the sinks in the patient rooms were observed to be--or the maintenance director disclosed that--hot water was not available to the sinks in any of them at that time. These sinks were plumbed for hot water service and they were the only ones available to patients to use after using the toilet in their rooms.

The Hospital census at the time of this investigation was one. This patient resided in room 102. A check of the water temperature at the sink in that room--with the DON present and which took place at about 2:40 p.m.--revealed that after turning on the hot water faucet and letting the water run fully for four minutes the water temperature remained cool to the hand. The DON stated at this time that the water is just not getting hot.

An interview with the Maintenance Director at about 1:30p.m. revealed that there has been a problem that the facilty has been aware of since 3/1/11 that has caused the rooms to not receive hot water even while other parts of the facility do receive hot water. The maintenance director stated that a plumber came out on 3/1/11 to troubleshoot and identify the problem but he had not been back to fix it yet.