State human services regulators are shutting down Wake Forest Care Center today. The assisted living center has a long history of violations including several involving the separate deaths of two residents who wandered off unattended.
In an unusually severe action, the state Division of Health Service Regulation notified owner Richard Cresenzo that he must find new locations for residents by 5 p.m. Monday or whenever the last resident has been safely placed. Cresenzo, a Burlington lawyer, did not immediately return a call for comment on the immediate loss of his license.
"A summary suspension is based in this agency's finding that conditions at Wake Forest Care Center present an imminent danger to the health, safety and welfare of the residents and that emergency action is required to protect the residents," Barbara Ryan, chief of the adult care licensure section of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a letter to Cresenzo.
The action followed by less than a month the death of McKinley High, 79, a resident of the center. The driver on a street not far from the center fatally struck High, who had wandered off from the center.
Miklos Ankhelyi, 67, wandered away from the home in 2006 and drowned in a nearby creek. That incident cost the center a state fine of $12,000. Like High, neighbors had seen Ankhelyi walking away from the home unattended.
"We hate that it happened," Cresenzo said of High's death at the time.
The 80-bed center at 306 S. Allen St. has been fined more than $40,000 since 2006 for violations found by the state Department of Health and Human Services.
A woman who answered the phone at 6 p.m. today at the center refused comment, saying only that the shutting down of the home is "a very sensitive matter."
Polly Williams, a retired N.C. State professor who advocates for older people, said the state is generally very reluctant to close assisted living facilities because even sub-par centers have become home to the residents.
"I'm sure that's its serious, but whether they could find someone else to take over I don't know," Williams said.
"The residents' health is often fragile enough that being moved is really bad for them."
