Fairfield Nursing & Rehab: Silent Call Bells Found - MD
"I keep holding and pressing the call button and I did not know it was not working," she told the inspector who found her on September 16. "No one has come in here."
A hand bell was sitting on the tray table beside her bed. She picked it up and rang it. It couldn't be heard at the nurse's station either.
The inspector had arrived that morning to investigate a complaint filed by a family member who said they had pushed a call bell in a patient room and the light never lit up in the hallway. Staff, the family alleged, told them the call bell wasn't working at the desk, or that the volume had been turned down.
At 10:45 a.m., the inspector walked into the room named in the complaint and pushed the call bell button. A light came on over the door in the hallway. No sound came out. The inspector moved to the other bed in the room and, with the resident's permission, pushed that bell too. Again, a light. No sound.
A staff member identified as Staff #10 was in the hallway. The inspector told her the bells couldn't be heard. Staff #10 went into the room, came back out, and confirmed it herself.
The inspector then walked to rooms 203, 205, and a third room on the unit and activated the call bells one by one. Lights lit up over every door. Not one of them made a sound.
At 10:57 a.m., the inspector asked the staff member sitting at the nurse's station, identified as Staff #29, whether he had heard any bells ringing. He said he had not.
Nobody had.
At 11:12 a.m., the Director of Maintenance arrived on the unit, walked to the nurse's station computer, and pointed to a speaker icon on the screen. A slash ran through it. The speaker had been turned off.
Two minutes later, the Assistant Director of Nursing and the unit's RN manager arrived and denied that staff could turn off the call bells. They said they needed to figure out why the sound had stopped so it could be fixed.
By 11:30 a.m., after the inspector's intervention, call bells could be heard ringing on the Capitol unit again.
The complaint that triggered the inspection, filed under case number 323371, had described exactly what the inspector found: a call bell that wasn't registering at the desk, and staff who told the family either the system wasn't working or the volume was down. The inspector's own test confirmed both. The Director of Maintenance confirmed the mechanism. The nursing leadership, in the same moment, said they didn't know how it had happened.
The Director of Nursing and a regional representative for the facility were informed of the findings the following afternoon at an exit conference.
The inspection covered only one of the facility's two nursing units. The Capitol unit was the one examined. Whether the same problem existed elsewhere was not part of the survey.
Resident #25 had been sitting there with a cord in her hand, pressing a button that sent light signals down a hallway where nobody was listening, in a building where the people responsible for her safety were at a station that had gone quiet. She had not known the sound was off. She had kept pressing anyway.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Fairfield Nursing & Rehabilitation Center from 2025-09-17 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
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.
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Last verified: November 3, 2026 · Our methodology
FAIRFIELD NURSING & REHABILITATION CENTER in CROWNSVILLE, MD was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 17, 2025.
"I keep holding and pressing the call button and I did not know it was not working," she told the inspector who found her on September 16.
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.