LAURINBURG – The director of a Laurinburg nursing facility cited for numerous state violations is facing felony drug charges in another county.
Tammie Leigh Bullard, director of Willow Place Assisted Living and Memory Care, is expected to go to court soon on drug possession and trafficking charges, according to the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office.
She was arrested in March 2016 on two felony counts of trafficking heroin/opium. Bullard was also charged with one count each of possession of a schedule II drug and possession of a schedule IV drug.
The charges are the result of a traffic stop in January 2016, according to Sgt. Brian Kelly of the Concord Police Department.
“Another officer arrested her for DWI and took out trafficking warrants on her later,” Kelly said.
Cabarrus County court records show that Bullard had a court appearance on May 31 and requested that the case be continued. The date for her next appearance has yet to be determined.
Bullard declined to speak to The Laurinburg Exchange Tuesday and referred questions to her attorney Vernon Russell of Concord. Russell did not return calls for comment.
At the time of her arrest, Bullard was employed at Country Home Assisted Living in Concord. Representatives at the facility declined to comment on Bullard’s tenure with the company.
She began working at Willow Place Assisted Living and Memory Care in early 2017.
One of the many infractions the home was cited for was improper handling of medications.
One resident was prescribed Valium twice daily. A count of the patient’s medication revealed leftover pills, according to the report by the Department of Health and Human Service Division of health service regulation
In May, half of a patient’s prescription for opioid pain killers went missing, the 108-page report said.
The resident was prescribed 120 Oxycodone tablets. The medicine was signed into the medication cart on May 5. On May 25, it was discovered that 60 of the pills were missing, the report said.
The incident was reported to Laurinburg Police Department and is still under investigation according to Assistant Police Chief Cliff Sessoms.
The state report outlines 16 violations.
Bullard is also the Administrator for Shallotte Assisted Living in Shallotte.
Petitions
There are plans by a consultant representing the families of Willow Place residents to petition the state to revoke or suspend Bullard’s license and petition the state to put Willow Place into a state of receivership.
The consultant, who asked to remain anonymous, said that receivership would allow the state to take over the management of the home until a new management company or buyer of the property could be found.
“Within 90 days of taking over management for Willow Place, the findings have been one of the worst in the state of North Carolina … during the small window of time that the new company, Z & V Adult Care LLC, Shelby, North Carolina owned by Georgette and Tony Johnson, has been managing Willow Place,” the consultant said. “If a company can come in and do this type of damage in 90 days, imagine what the unnoticed results they would be after managing for a year.”
According to the advocate, the nursing home is owned by a bank who foreclosed on the property when the previous owner could no longer make payments. The home has since been run by management companies with Z&V Adult Care taking over in early 2017.
The consultant is calling for others to join the petition “to help our seniors receive the care they deserve.”
The Scotland County Department of Social Services, State Bureau of Investigations, Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services are being asked to conduct a more in depth investigation into the facility and the management company.
“If you look thoroughly at the report for the 16 infractions, you can only hope that Department of Social Services would be restructuring their department to prevent such a major mishap from happening again,” the consultant said. “I pray that DSS, sees this as an opportunity to save face and protect the residents because if they were doing their job thoroughly, these findings would not be as abundant and severe as they are now.”
The advocate has requested that employees and family members send an email to advocatefortheelderly@gmail.com to “tell their story.” All information will remain confidential.