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A Mixed Bill Of Health
I

man Funds said the 165-bed home
hasn't been admitting new residents
anyway because the only unit it has
opened so far is filled to capacity. And
Danto has also filed a formal denial of
several of the findings of a licensing
team from the Michigan Bureau of
Health Systems.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL LIPPITt

\

is been in operation less than three
months and already a new Jewish
nursing care facility in town has
been cited for violations ranging
from sloppy record-keeping to poor pa-
tient care.
And one individual in the commu-
nity has transferred his loved one out
of the Marvin and Betty Danto Fami-
ly Health Care Center because he was
unhappy with the care she was re-
ceiving. Another woman said her moth-
er was transported from Danto to
Huron Valley Hospital with pneumo-
nia, a blood infection and bedsores. She
transferred her out of the home upon
her release from the hospital.
Some people blame the Jewish Fed-
eration of Metropolitan Detroit, which
selected the facility's owner and oper-
ator, the Health Care & Retirement
Corporation (HCR); others are point-
ing a finger at the Danto home, which
absorbed residents from the now-de-
funct Prentis Manor and is cost-pro-
hibitive for people who do not receive
Medicaid benefits.
The Danto facility, which leases
property from the United Jewish Foun-
dation on the Jewish Community Cam-
pus in West Bloomfield, has voluntarily
halted Medicare admissions at the
state's request. If it doesn't pass muster
by the end of six months, the facility
stands to lose its Medicaid/Medicare
certification.
Danto administrator Linda Gross-

The Danto facility before its opening in December.

A state-led
inspection team has
reported a series of
violations
at the newest Jewish
nursing home.

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

`There are around six or seven cita-
tions we are disputing [involving pa-
tient care]. We admitted 32 patients in
one week and many residents came to
us very apprehensive. We were com-
mitted to providing quality nursing
care and for residents to adjust to a
new environment, and a lot of docu-
mentation wasn't completed. That
wasn't our focus the first week," Ms.
Funds said.

The state cited Danto for 29 viola-
tions, 15 of them for quality of care is-
sues.
In mid-December, the last 32 resi-
dents at Prentis were moved to Danto
— a transition that marked the end of
an era. It was the last nursing home
operated by Jewish Home for Aged, the
agency of the Jewish Federation that
oversees Fleischman Residence, an as-
sisted living facility next door to Dan-
to, and assists with cultural and
religious programming at Danto.
The Prentis transferees filled almost
all the beds set aside for Medicaid re-
cipients.
Ms. Funds suggested the Prentis
Manor residents came to Danto in poor
shape. She also asserted that the three
days it took to relocate the residents to
the new facility was insufficient to pre-
pare them for their new surroundings.
"They came with many issues. The
families came with anger at what hap-
pened to Prentis," she said. Plus, she
pointed out, the building itself is brand-
new, so staffers were still finding their
way around during the relocation.
Ms. Funds' complaints were echoed
by Rob Possanza, HCR's regional di-
rector. Including Danto, HCR operates
eight nursing homes in the Detroit area
"I think it was unfair for us to have
to take 30 patients in three days," he
said, adding that he agreed with the
survey report's findings about record-
BILL OF HEALTH page 24

A Southfield engineer is
accused of leaking classified
documents to the Israelis.

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

retired engineer from the U.S. Army
Tank Automotive and Armaments
Command (TACOM) in Warren said it
is common for intelligence information
to be shared between the Israeli officers and
Army engineers stationed at the post.
But Wilbert Simkovitz, an attorney who left
TACOM in 1992, was not aware Wednesday
that a former associate, Army engineer David
Tenenbaum of Southfield, has been placed un-
der investigation for passing classified docu-
ments about missile and defense vehicle
technology to Israeli officers at TACOM.
While he had not seen the affidavit detail-
ing the kind of information Mr. Tenenbaum
admitted to sharing, he said it falls into the
highly classified category of data.
But, Mr. Simkovitz pointed out, "If he did
anything, it was probably inadvertent; but then
the same inadvertency goes the other way, too.
We get intelligence from the Israelis, too. It's
not a one-way street."
According to an FBI affidavit filed to obtain
a search warrant of Mr. Tenenbaum's South-
field home, the engineer provided his Israeli
counterparts with information on the light ar-
mor systems and survivability program, ce-
ramic armor, the advanced survivable test
battery, the heavy survival test battery data
and Patriot missile countermeasures.
The FBI says he admitted to providing the
Israelis with "unreleasable classified informa-
tion" about the Bradley tank and the Humvee
(Hummer).
TACOM designs and maintains the whole
fleet of vehicles for the U.S. Army.
Mr. Tenenbaum, a 39-year-old Southfield
resident who has served as a mechanical
engineer at TACOM for the last 10 years,
was targeted after he admitted to a poly-
graph examiner, after a security clearance up-
grade last week, that he had "inadvertently"
passed documents to Israeli liaison officers at
TACOM and to Dr. Reuven Granot, scientif-
ic deputy director of the Israeli Ministry of De-
fense.
FBI spokesman Thomas Bailey said only
that a warrant to search Mr. Tenenbaum's
home has been executed and that no arrests
have been made. The FBI was searching for
telephone bills, financial statements, address
books and computer files related to the data
that was reportedly passed co the Israelis.
An official at the Israeli Embassy in Wash-
ington said Wednesday, "Israeli defense per-
sonnel serving in the United States are given
the most explicit instructions forbidding them
from receiving classified information, except

SHADES OF POLLARD page 25