MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A Miami-Dade County assisted living facility has been ordered not to take in any new patients after one of its residents vanished not once, but twice.
The Agency for Health Care Administration has placed a moratorium on admissions at Villa Serena VIII located at 3321 Southwest 24th Terrace.
According to the AHCA order, a resident of Villa Serena VIII vanished on June 10.
The report said there was no indication anyone called the police or the patient's emergency contact.
The report said two days later, facility staff was informed by a hospital that their resident arrived by ambulance.
According to the report, the resident had fallen, was dizzy, had contusions to the head, was unresponsive, dehydrated and suffering from hallucinations.
The unidentified resident was returned to the facility and vanished again the next day.
"There is no indication that the respondent called law enforcement or the resident's responsible party after this elopement," the report said.
The report went on to say the facility doesn't have the qualified personnel to meet resident's needs.
At least one resident has consistently been waking up with feces in the bed.
The report said, despite having been cited in May for failure to supervise residents, staff took no action to address issues.
State records show Roxana Solano is president of Villa Serena VIII. She refused to talk to Local 10 News investigative reporter Jeff Weiniser about the supervision issues.
Weiniser confronted Solano outside her million-dollar Coconut Grove home, getting into her Mercedes-Benz.
"I'm not going to talk to you. This is private property," Solano told Weinsier.
Solano's assisted living facility empire has grown to 10 Miami-Dade County locations under the name of Villa Serena.
She is also president of Unlimited Senior Solutions, Roelhy Enterprise 7 and 8 Corp. and Santa Barbara BH Inc.
In 2010, Solano applied for and was given a $5,000 Miami-Dade County mom-and-pop small business grant.
The AHCA said all residents at Villa Serena VIII are "at risk" yet has allowed the facility to remain open, only ordering a moratorium taking in new residents.
An agency representative was researching why the facility wasn't ordered shut.
According to state records, Solano's facilities have been fined more than $7,000 for issues involving resident care, employee training and record keeping.
Late Tuesday, an attorney representing Villa Serena provided Local 10 with a statement, which read:
"Due to privacy and confidentiality regulations, we are not able to comment on individual cases. However, for more than twenty years we have been providing safe and effective care and services to this community without significant or adverse events.
"Our organization prides itself on providing responsible and compassionate care to all persons admitted to our facility. We will continue to serve as advocates for patient rights, and we will continue to call for improving industry "best practices," at the state and local level. We will, of course, work with any licensing and/or regulatory entity to address any issue that arises at our facilities and we will work diligently to ensure that any such issues are resolved in an expedient manner.
"We are proud of our long history of service to the South Florida community, and we look forward to continuing that work for many years to come."