Blossom South Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, at 1175 Monroe Ave

The state health department has fined two local nursing homes after Medicare inspectors reported poor care, including one incident where a resident later died after choking during her evening meal.

Blossom South Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, at 1175 Monroe Ave., and Blossom Health Care Center, at 989 Blossom Road, were each fined $2,000, the maximum that the health department can levy for a violation of state and federal regulations. Both facilities, part of the Compassionate Care Network of for-profit homes, have also received more costly federal fines in the last year and been cited repeatedly by Medicare investigators for the most severe categories of patient care deficiencies — violations that cause actual harm or immediately jeopardize the health and safety of residents.

Jerry Wood, co-founder of Compassionate Care Network, did not return calls to his cell phone for comment. Calls to the nursing homes were directed to an administrator at Blossom Health Care Center, who could not be reached late Tuesday afternoon.

A third nursing home, The Heritage at St. Ann’s Community, a nonprofit on 1500 Portland Ave., has also received a lesser state penalty, a denial of payment for new Medicaid or Medicare residents until the facility is free of dangers that lead to accidents.

In a written statement, St. Ann’s officials said the nursing home was cited for past problems but staff corrected the deficiency before the inspection in May. The state has not denied payment, the statement said.

According to inspection reports for Blossom Health Care Center, a resident died in March 2007 after choking on food. Nurses did not respond quickly enough, and emergency equipment, including an oxygen and suction machine, wasn’t available, inspectors concluded.

A nursing assistant reported to inspectors that the resident, who had had a stroke, was not fed by staff, as a care plan had instructed. The assistant said that after the resident had trouble breathing during dinner on March 18, a nurse declined to get a suction machine, which was locked in a supply closet. About half an hour after the resident was taken to bed, and became unresponsive, a nurse suctioned mucous and called for an ambulance, the inspection reported. The resident died in the hospital on March 20.

During a June 8 survey at Blossom South, inspectors found that a nurse removed adhesive dressing from a resident’s open wounds without offering pain medication.

Another patient, with glaucoma and cataracts, was not taken for a follow-up appointment with an ophthalmologist or evaluated for cataract extraction. A third resident, who had diabetes and had a laser eye procedure to treat glaucoma, was not given anti-inflammatory drops, according to the inspection.

The state health department reports show that all the problems cited in the inspections have been corrected.

But the repeat violations of the Blossom health care facilities fit a widespread pattern of some nursing homes’ “yo-yo compliance” with state regulations, said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a state advocacy group.

“They’ve have problems, and then they correct those problems so they can continue to take in new residents and get paid for them, but they’ve never instituted real change to take care of residents’ safety,” Mollot said. “It is inexcusable and sad for the people who live there.”

In February, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services levied a $149,000 penalty against Blossom South, the highest fine issued for any New York nursing home during that quarter. Wood said earlier that the fine was issued for violations under a different owner. Last summer, Blossom Health Care was also issued a $7,500 federal fine for a March 23, 2007, inspection.