Controversy brews over deleting of nursing home voicemails from Scott's cell phone (Sun-Sentinel)

Voicemail deletion is all too common in Florida governments.  Enough.

Frustrated by the lack of attention that nursing home staff were paying to her 79-year-old mother during an air-conditioning outage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Adams spent much of Monday, Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday morning trying to keep her mom, Christine Cooper, hydrated and as cool as possible.

Controversy brews over deleting of nursing home voicemails from Scott's cell phone

Frustrated by the lack of attention that nursing home staff were paying to her 79-year-old mother during an air-conditioning outage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Adams spent much of Monday, Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday morning trying to keep her mom, Christine Cooper, hydrated and as cool as possible.

By Gray Rohrer
Sun-Sentinel

Gov. Rick Scott’s staff created controversy when they deleted voicemails left by workers at a Hollywood nursing home where 11 residents died after Hurricane Irma.

Scott spokeswoman Lauren Schenone pointed to state rules on handling of public records, which note that “transitory” information, such as scheduling for meetings and “most telephone messages,” can be deleted after their short-term value is lost.

“The voicemails were not retained because the information from each voicemail was collected by the governor’s staff and given to the proper agency for handling. Every call was returned,” Schenone wrote in an email Monday. “The Governor receives hundreds of voicemails and once acted upon, they are deleted so the voicemail box does not become full, as is the standard practice with anyone operating a cellphone. This practice follows Florida law, and the state’s record retention policies.”

Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, a public records advocacy group, said she doesn’t think Scott acted illegally, but added the voicemails could have backed up his story.

A timeline of unfolding tragedy at nursing home

"Just because they could delete them doesn’t mean they should delete them,” Petersen said. “These were important; people died.”

But Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale, who represents the district that includes the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, says erasing the voicemails could be a violation of state public records laws.

“Clearly, there is significant content and purpose behind those voicemails,” said Farmer, a trial attorney. “They go to a matter that is in controversy right now, which is who did what when and why with regard to the emergency situation at this nursing home.”

Scott gave his personal cellphone number to nursing homes and assisted living facilities as Irma approached, but the four messages they left the governor weren’t kept, as , as first reported by CBS4’s Jim DeFede.

Eight residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills died Sept. 13, after stewing for three days in sweltering heat when Irma knocked out power and air-conditioning to 6.7 million homes and businesses across the state. Three more have died since.

The deaths have spurred criminal investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Hollywood Police Department, as well as administrative reviews by state health care regulators.

Farmer, who initially called for an FDLE probe, now wants a U.S. attorney to look into the matter because he doesn’t trust Scott’s administration.

“The governor has now inserted himself squarely in this dispute, and he may have done away with very material evidence of the dispute,” Farmer said. “The veracity of his office and his various departments and agencies are now in question.”

Scott’s office also released a timeline saying that when nursing home workers called his phone, they didn’t report urgent problems. It came days after the center released its own timeline showing it had called state emergency and health officials and Florida Power & Light, attempting to get electricity restored.

“No amount of finger-pointing by the [nursing home] … will hide the fact that this health care facility failed to do their basic duty to protect life,” Scott said in a statement released last week along with the timeline.

In the aftermath of the incident, Scott issued an emergency order requiring all nursing homes and assisted living facilities to have back-up generators within 90 days to prevent such deaths in the future. The Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration has also suspended Medicaid payments to the facility and placed a moratorium on new patients. The facility has filed a lawsuit contesting those orders.

Farmer said he is filing a bill this week to impose tougher regulation on nursing homes and assisted living facilities, including increasing penalties for violations, requiring generators and requiring minimum liability insurance coverage.

“We’ve got all kinds of holes and deficiencies in our current system,” Farmer said. “If I were a person in the Midwest or the Northeast looking to relocate a parent or a grandparent I don’t know that I would be looking to the state of Florida.”

grohrer@orlandosentinel.com or 850-222-5564

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