MM.%MOMI% THE JEWISH NEWS .A =4: P A0, 4* .4 ," r s vk is A, TOp S •- f or • 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