COLQUITT, GA - Federal inspectors documented multiple food safety violations at Miller Nursing Home during a February 2025 inspection, finding expired food products, improper storage practices, and unsanitary conditions while the facility operated from temporary kitchen locations during a renovation project.
Kitchen Operations Spread Across Multiple Locations
The 153-bed facility was operating with a complex temporary kitchen setup during the main kitchen renovation. Food preparation was taking place in a physical therapy kitchen located blocks away, with additional operations spread across a semi-truck freezer, the main hospital's walk-in refrigerator, and a makeshift serving area within the facility.
This unusual arrangement created challenges that led to significant food safety lapses affecting the 60 residents who received oral diets prepared in these locations. The remaining 105 residents received nutrition through feeding tubes.
Expired and Improperly Stored Food Products
Inspectors found multiple instances of expired food items throughout the temporary facilities. In the hospital's walk-in refrigerator, nutritional shakes were discovered past their expiration date. The facility's Food Service Supervisor was unaware that these products required use within 14 days of thawing, despite clear labeling instructions.
At Station Five, approximately 20 cartons of nutritional shakes lacked proper dating to indicate when they had been removed from freezer storage and thawed. Without this critical information, staff could not determine if the products remained safe for consumption within the 14-day window.
In the physical therapy kitchen, inspectors found a bag of thawed chicken tenders that was both unlabeled and undated, with a manufacturer's expiration date that had already passed. A container of leftover chili was found to be more than three days old, violating the facility's own policy of discarding leftover foods after 72 hours.
Contamination Risks from Improper Chemical Storage
The temporary storage room in the physical therapy kitchen contained four gallons of bleach stored directly alongside food items including canned goods and boxed products. This practice violates basic food safety protocols that require cleaning chemicals to be stored separately from food to prevent contamination.
The facility's own policy clearly states that cleaning supplies must be stored separately from food supplies, a standard that was not being followed during the temporary operations.
Frozen Food Exposure and Air Contamination
In the semi-truck freezer used for frozen food storage, inspectors observed two opened boxes of meat - bacon and pork chops - with plastic bags that had not been properly sealed. This left the meat contents completely exposed to air, creating potential for bacterial growth and contamination.
The Food Service Supervisor acknowledged that the meat should have been completely covered and sealed to maintain food safety standards.
Unsanitary Kitchen Conditions
The walk-in refrigerator in the hospital kitchen showed signs of poor maintenance, with black grime accumulated along the floor edges and brown crusty debris in corners. These conditions persisted throughout the inspection period, indicating a lack of regular deep cleaning protocols.
The temporary kitchen setup also lacked proper hand hygiene facilities. The only garbage receptacle was a 55-gallon container with a lid that required staff to touch potentially contaminated surfaces with clean hands when discarding waste.
Cleaning vs. Sanitizing Confusion
Facility staff demonstrated confusion about proper surface sanitization. When asked about kitchen surface sanitizers, the Food Service Manager showed inspectors a cleaning product that she believed was appropriate for sanitizing food preparation surfaces.
However, review of the product's safety data sheet revealed it was a cleaning agent containing sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate and other compounds, not an approved sanitizer for food contact surfaces. Proper sanitization requires specific antimicrobial products designed to eliminate pathogens on food preparation areas.
Food Labeling and Dating Failures
The facility's policy required all foods stored in refrigerators to be covered, labeled, and dated if not in original containers. Staff were supposed to label foods with both the food item name and expiration date, but multiple violations of this protocol were documented.
Turkey lunch meat packages in the reach-in refrigerator lacked proper labeling, and various leftover items were found without required identification or dating. This practice prevents staff from properly tracking food safety timelines and determining when items should be discarded.
Health Risks and Industry Standards
These violations created potential pathways for foodborne illness transmission among residents. Expired foods can harbor dangerous bacteria, while improper storage temperatures and exposure to air accelerate bacterial growth. Chemical contamination from improperly stored cleaning supplies poses additional health risks.
Food safety protocols in healthcare facilities must be particularly stringent given the vulnerable population served. Many nursing home residents have compromised immune systems, making them more susceptible to foodborne illnesses that could cause serious complications.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes that proper food safety practices are critical in institutional settings where large numbers of people are served meals prepared in central kitchens. Standard protocols include proper refrigeration temperatures, appropriate labeling and dating systems, separate storage of chemicals and food, and use of approved sanitizers on food contact surfaces.
Facility Response and Temporary Operations
The Food Service Supervisor acknowledged the various deficiencies during the inspection and confirmed that established protocols were not being followed. The temporary nature of the kitchen operations appeared to contribute to the breakdown in food safety procedures.
However, federal regulations require healthcare facilities to maintain food safety standards regardless of operational circumstances. Temporary arrangements must still comply with professional food service standards to protect resident health and safety.
The inspection revealed that while the facility had appropriate policies in place, including detailed procedures for food storage, cleaning, and labeling, these protocols were not being consistently implemented across the temporary kitchen locations.
The violations affected operations serving 60 residents and highlighted the challenges of maintaining food safety standards during facility renovations. The deficiencies required immediate correction to prevent potential foodborne illness outbreaks and ensure compliance with federal healthcare standards.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Miller Nursing Home from 2025-02-07 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
💬 Join the Discussion
Comments are moderated. Please keep discussions respectful and relevant to nursing home care quality.