North Country Nursing & Rehab: Dish Sanitation Failure - NY
Inspectors who visited the facility on August 15, 2025 found that the dishwashing machine had failed to sanitize dishes correctly before the midday meal. The dishes, inspectors noted, should have been run through the facility's three-bay sanitizer before anyone used them. They weren't. Many residents were affected.
The point of sanitizing dishes is not complicated. Inspectors stated it plainly in their report: dishes require sanitizing to get rid of bacteria. A machine that isn't doing that job isn't protecting the people eating off those plates.
North Country Nursing & Rehabilitation Center sits at 182 Highland Road in Massena, a small city in St. Lawrence County near the Canadian border. The facility carries the Medicare and Medicaid provider identification number 335619. The inspection was conducted in response to a complaint.
CMS rated the harm level as minimal or potential for actual harm. That rating reflects what inspectors could document, not a guarantee that nothing went wrong. Residents in nursing facilities are often elderly, medically fragile, or immunocompromised. A bacterial exposure that a healthy adult shrugs off can send a nursing home resident to the hospital.
The three-bay sanitizer was there. It was available. The step was skipped.
What the inspection report does not say is who made the call to proceed with service, whether anyone flagged the malfunctioning machine before lunch was served, or how long the dishwasher had been operating improperly. It does not say whether this was the first time or the fifth. The report captures a moment: inspectors arrived, the machine was not sanitizing properly, and the dishes had already gone out.
For the residents who ate lunch that day, the meal looked the same as any other.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for North Country Nursing & Rehabilitation Center from 2025-08-15 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Corrections: We strive for accuracy in everything we publish. If you believe any fact in this article is incorrect, please contact us with details, and we will review and correct it promptly.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: October 17, 2026 · Our methodology
NORTH COUNTRY NURSING & REHABILITATION CENTER in MASSENA, NY was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 15, 2025.
Inspectors who visited the facility on August 15, 2025 found that the dishwashing machine had failed to sanitize dishes correctly before the midday meal.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.