Lone Tree Retirement: Kitchen Garbage Left Uncovered - KS
The August inspection, triggered by a complaint, covered a facility that houses 33 residents. The single violation inspectors cited was a kitchen sanitation failure, rated as minimal harm but carrying a real risk of insect or rodent infestation for everyone living there.
Inspectors first walked through the kitchen on the morning of August 19th. Three garbage cans, no lids. They came back the next morning. Same three cans, still uncovered.
That second visit, at 10:20 a.m. on August 20th, is when the Certified Dietary Manager, identified in the report as CDM BB, got involved. She told inspectors the cans did have lids and reached behind one of them to produce one, placing it on the can next to the steamer counter. She acknowledged the cans should be covered.
Sixty-five minutes later, inspectors were back in the kitchen. The garbage can sitting about three feet from the stove had no lid again.
A dietary staff member identified as CC had just finished cooking hamburgers. She told inspectors that the garbage cans in the kitchen rarely had a lid placed on them.
That word, rarely, is doing a lot of work. It suggests this wasn't a momentary lapse caught on a bad morning. It was the normal condition of the kitchen.
The facility's own waste disposal policy, revised as recently as October 2024, requires garbage to be disposed of daily and deposited into sealed containers outside. The policy said nothing about keeping indoor kitchen cans covered during the day, and when inspectors asked for a waste management policy that addressed that, the facility couldn't produce one.
The administrator, identified as Administrative Staff A, told inspectors during a 1:00 p.m. interview on August 20th that she expected all garbage cans to always have proper lids on them in the kitchen. Her expectation and what her dietary staff were actually doing had apparently never been reconciled.
Open garbage in a commercial kitchen creates conditions for flies, cockroaches, and rodents. In a long-term care setting, where residents may have compromised immune systems, suppressed appetites, or difficulty recovering from illness, a pest infestation that originates in the kitchen carries consequences that extend well beyond the kitchen itself.
Inspectors noted that many residents were affected, meaning the risk was facility-wide, not isolated to one wing or one meal service.
The violation was cited under F0814, which covers proper disposal of garbage and refuse. The harm level was classified as minimal harm or potential for actual harm, the lowest tier of the harm scale. No immediate jeopardy was declared.
What the inspection record shows is a gap between what the administrator said she expected, what the dietary manager demonstrated she knew, and what the cook described as routine practice. The lid existed. CDM BB knew where it was. She pulled it from behind a can and put it on another one while inspectors stood there. An hour later, a different can was open again.
Lone Tree Retirement operates as the long-term care unit of Meade District Hospital, a small rural facility in southwestern Kansas. The August 21st inspection was a complaint investigation.
The dietary staffer who cooked the hamburgers and said lids were rarely used was still working in that kitchen when inspectors documented the third uncovered can.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Meade District Hosp Ltcu Dba Lone Tree Retirement from 2025-08-21 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.
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Last verified: October 13, 2026 · Our methodology
MEADE DISTRICT HOSP LTCU DBA LONE TREE RETIREMENT in MEADE, KS was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 21, 2025.
The August inspection, triggered by a complaint, covered a facility that houses 33 residents.
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.