Wisconsin Rapids Health Services: Lift Failures Left Resident Bedridden - WI
The resident, who has since left Wisconsin Rapids Health Services, usually got up to eat meals. That weekend, according to a certified nursing assistant who spoke with inspectors by phone, the resident had to stay in bed because the lift didn't work. The CNA couldn't recall whether the resident had asked to get up.
The CNA told the nurse. Nobody put in a work order.
The broken lift sat unresolved through the weekend. Staff in the building had been sharing a single remote control between two bariatric lifts, a workaround that the facility's maintenance director, identified in the report as MD-F, knew about. MD-F told the inspector that the rental company's bariatric EZ stand and the bariatric Hoyer lift could share a remote, and that getting a replacement remote wouldn't take long. MD-F said he wasn't sure why a new one didn't arrive sooner.
It didn't. Instead, the administrator, NHA-A, eventually contacted the rental company directly on September 22. The company picked up the broken Hoyer lift that same day at 5:42 PM. A replacement arrived the following morning at 5:43 AM.
By then, the resident had spent at least one day confined to bed.
NHA-A told the inspector he hadn't known the resident was affected. He said the resident didn't choose to get up every day. He thought the broken lift had only affected one resident, though he wasn't sure which one. When he learned staff had been sharing a controller, he asked the rental company why they hadn't just sent a new controller. The company responded by bringing a replacement lift instead.
MD-F, in a later interview, confirmed the lift problems had started approximately two weeks before the October 6 inspection, when a remote stopped working. He said the facility's maintenance director gives the lifts occasional visual checks but doesn't document those checks on any spreadsheet for inspections or battery rebuilds. He verified the lift didn't work. He said he wasn't sure why.
What the inspector found when she walked into the storage room on R1's unit made the picture worse. A second broken lift, the rented bariatric EZ stand, was sitting there. MD-F tried to turn it on in front of the surveyor. It didn't work. MD-F said he didn't know why that one wasn't working either.
Staff on the unit, the inspector noted, were confused about which lifts were operational.
NHA-A, when the surveyor told him about the broken EZ stand in storage, acknowledged he hadn't known about it. He also acknowledged he had not completed any staff education on how to report equipment problems so they get resolved quickly. That gap, the inspector's findings suggest, is how a broken lift goes a weekend without a work order, how a remote gets shared between machines for two weeks, and how a second broken lift ends up in a storage room without anyone flagging it.
The violation was cited at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting a few residents. The inspection was a complaint survey.
For the resident who missed meals out of bed that September weekend, the stay at Wisconsin Rapids Health Services is over. CNA-J, reached by phone, said the resident was no longer at the facility and couldn't recall the person's name.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Wisconsin Rapids Health Services from 2025-10-06 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: August 5, 2026 · Our methodology
Wisconsin Rapids Health Services in Wisconsin Rapids, WI was cited for violations during a health inspection on October 6, 2025.
The resident, who has since left Wisconsin Rapids Health Services, usually got up to eat meals.
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.