Summers Healthcare Center: Dignity Violations Found - WV
A state surveyor was watching.
When a registered nurse on staff was asked whether plastic silverware was normal, she said it wasn't. The Employee Life Cycle Manager offered a simpler explanation: the kitchen had run out of clean silverware.
That was August 11. Two days later, on August 13, plastic silverware was still being set on resident trays headed to the last halls of the facility. A kitchen worker identified in the report as Employee 138 told the surveyor they were out of regular silverware and would have to use plastic. Employee 137 said it was too late to wrap the regular silverware because it hadn't been washed in time. Employee 138 added that the delivery truck had come on Monday and brought more silverware.
The surveyor flagged it. Staff pulled the plastic off the remaining trays and bagged regular silverware instead, right there on the tray line. The Regional Dietary Manager then educated kitchen staff on why plastic silverware is a resident dignity issue.
The facility serves 102 residents.
What happened at Summers is the kind of violation that doesn't leave a visible mark. No one was hurt. The inspection report rated the harm as minimal. But the citations under federal nursing home rules exist precisely because the experience of eating matters, and because residents in long-term care facilities are not patients to be managed through a meal but people sitting down to lunch.
Plastic silverware is cheaper, lighter, and easier than running a functional dishwashing operation. It is also what you hand someone when convenience has quietly overtaken their dignity. The fact that it took a surveyor's presence to get regular silverware back on the trays, on the second day of the problem, says something about how the issue was being handled before anyone official walked in.
The second violation found during the same inspection was smaller in scale but identical in category.
On August 12, a surveyor was inside the room of Resident 20 conducting an interview. A nurse aide, identified as NA 39, opened the door while in the middle of a conversation with another resident in the hallway. She turned, saw the surveyor standing in the room, and closed the door. She had not knocked. She had not announced herself.
The facility's own written policy, reviewed by inspectors on August 14, was direct on this point. Staff are required to knock before entering a closed resident room and wait for an answer. If there is no answer, they are to knock a second time and announce their entrance before going in.
NA 39 did neither.
When the Unit Manager was asked about it two days later, her response was immediate: "No, she should have knocked. I will talk to her about it now."
That response suggests the expectation was understood. The policy existed. The training, presumably, had happened at some point. What failed was the habit, the reflexive pause before a closed door that signals to the person on the other side that the room is theirs.
For residents in nursing homes, especially those who can no longer leave when they want to, privacy is largely architectural. It lives in the closed door, the knock, the moment of waiting. When staff move through those spaces as though the rooms belong to the facility rather than the people living in them, the message arrives whether or not anyone intends to send it.
Summers Healthcare Center is located at 198 John Cook Nursing Home Road in Hinton, a small city in Summers County in southern West Virginia. The inspection was conducted as a complaint survey on August 20, 2025.
The deficiencies cited were both tagged under the federal requirement that nursing facilities protect and promote resident rights, including the right to dignity and the right to privacy. Neither violation resulted in serious physical harm. Both were corrected, at least in the immediate sense, once inspectors were present to see them.
Whether the silverware stays in rotation, whether the knock becomes the rule rather than the exception, that part isn't in the report.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Summers Healthcare Center from 2025-08-20 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 13, 2026 · Our methodology
SUMMERS HEALTHCARE CENTER in HINTON, WV was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 20, 2025.
When a registered nurse on staff was asked whether plastic silverware was normal, she said it wasn't.
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.