Peterson Rehab: Infection Control Failure Found - WV
Inspectors found it on October 7, 2025, during a visit to the room where Resident 27 was living. The bathroom door was open. The noodle, the foam kind sold for swimming pools, had been taped along the entire pipe leading to the commode. The flush handle was covered in foam and tape as well.
When the inspector asked about it, Resident 27 said simply: "It was there when I came to this room."
That answer pointed to a problem beyond the object itself. The resident hadn't put it there. Someone on staff had, for a previous occupant of the room, and then the room had turned over to a new resident without anyone removing it or apparently noticing it was still there.
The Director of Nursing confirmed as much when inspectors spoke with her about an hour later. She said the foam and tape had been installed when a different resident lived in that room. She didn't say when that was, and the inspection report doesn't say either. What she did say was that it was an infection control problem, in plain terms: the material couldn't be properly sanitized.
Foam is porous. Tape collects grime along its edges. Neither can be wiped down the way hard surfaces can, and in a bathroom shared by a nursing home resident, that matters. The pipe runs to the toilet. The flush handle is touched every time the toilet is used.
"I'll get it removed immediately," the Director of Nursing told inspectors.
Peterson Rehabilitation and Healthcare had 137 residents at the time of the inspection. The violation was cited as affecting a few residents, with minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and was flagged as a random discovery rather than something inspectors were specifically looking for when they arrived.
The complaint inspection was conducted on October 8, 2025.
What the record leaves open is the question of how many residents had occupied that room since the foam and tape went up, and whether any of them had ever been told what it was or why it was there. Resident 27 hadn't been told. They had just moved into a room where someone else's workaround was still taped to the plumbing, and they had assumed it belonged there.
That assumption is the detail that lingers. A resident in a nursing home, dependent on staff for their environment and their safety, looked at foam wrapped in orange tape on a bathroom pipe and concluded it was simply how things were in this place.
It had been there long enough that it seemed normal.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Peterson Rehabilitation and Healthcare from 2025-10-08 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.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 12, 2026 · Our methodology
PETERSON REHABILITATION AND HEALTHCARE in WHEELING, WV was cited for violations during a health inspection on October 8, 2025.
Inspectors found it on October 7, 2025, during a visit to the room where Resident 27 was living.
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.