By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – Federal prosecutors have indicted three St. Louis-area nursing homes and the head of the company that used to run them.
The indictment names Claywest House Healthcare in St. Charles, and Oak Forest North and Lutheran Care Center, both in St. Louis. American Healthcare Management and CEO Robert Wachter operated them.
All now have new names and new management.
But U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway says when AHM was in charge, there were serious problems.
These people were taking taxpayer dollars and they were supposed to be taking care of people, Hanaway said. And they failed to take care of them so much so that some patients had ants crawling out of them, at least one patient, and another was beaten so severely they died.
Wachter and AHM paid the government more than a million dollars in a civil settlement last month.