Governor Mark Dayton says he’ll probably announce his choice for the state’s new health commissioner early next week — even as human services officials help sort through 23-hundred complaints of elder abuse at care facilities which have never been investigated — and another 800-plus that remain unresolved. The governor says the focus has been on the Health Department’s failure, but “he responsibility is on every service provider [to] provide the oversight, the quality of care that they are legally obligated [to do].”
Dayton says even the increased number of inspectors the legislature funded won’t be able to cover every senior care facility. “The responsibility… [when] some of these egregious abuses occur is first and foremost with the provider,” he says.