Helia Southbelt Healthcare: Smoking Violations - IL
Federal inspectors cited Helia Southbelt Healthcare following a complaint inspection on November 14, 2025, for failing to protect a resident the facility had already identified as a potentially unsafe smoker.
The resident, identified in inspection records as Resident 2, had been flagged in a smoking risk assessment as someone who should follow facility policy, a category that carried specific requirements about where and when he could smoke and where his materials had to be stored. None of those requirements were consistently enforced.
Progress notes written by facility staff over a five-week stretch told the story in their own words. On October 10, his bathroom smelled like cigarette smoke and there were ashes on the toilet seat. When staff searched his room, they found a box of rolling tubes. Four days later, on October 14, tobacco and rolling tubes were found on the floor between his bed and the wall. The next day, October 15, the bathroom smelled like smoke again and ashes were back on the toilet seat. By October 20, a progress note stated plainly that the resident was smoking in the bathroom.
Five documented incidents in ten days. The cigarettes were not locked up after any of them.
At one point, staff did attempt to take the items. The resident used profanity and refused to give them up. Staff let him keep them.
The facility's smoking policy, last revised in October 2015, states that smoking materials must be secured at the nurses' station when not in use and will not be kept in resident rooms. Smoking is permitted only in designated areas, specifically an outdoor courtyard, weather permitting. The policy's stated purpose is to assure all residents are safe while smoking.
A facility visitor interviewed by inspectors on the morning of November 14 confirmed the rule: residents are not allowed to smoke in their rooms, and cigarettes should be locked up when not in use for resident safety.
The gap between what the policy said and what staff actually did is the core of what inspectors found. The facility had the assessment. It had the policy. It had five written records of a man smoking alone in a small bathroom, with ashes accumulating on the porcelain, over the span of less than two weeks. And still the cigarettes stayed in the room.
Inspectors classified the violation under F0689, which covers the obligation to ensure residents receive care in an environment free from accident hazards. The level of harm was assessed as minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and the violation was noted as affecting few residents.
The risks of unsupervised smoking in a nursing home room are not abstract. Residents assessed as unsafe smokers may have physical limitations, cognitive impairments, or both, factors that raise the danger of burns, dropped materials, or fire. A facility designates outdoor smoking areas and requires locked storage precisely because a bathroom with a cigarette and a vulnerable resident is not a controlled environment.
What the records show is a facility that documented the problem repeatedly, in its own notes, and did not resolve it. Staff wrote down the smell of smoke. They wrote down the ashes. They wrote down finding the tobacco on the floor. They wrote down watching him smoke. The documentation was thorough. The response was not.
Whether the resident continued smoking in his room after the November inspection, the report does not say.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Helia Southbelt Healthcare from 2025-11-14 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 1, 2026 · Our methodology
HELIA SOUTHBELT HEALTHCARE in BELLEVILLE, IL was cited for violations during a health inspection on November 14, 2025.
None of those requirements were consistently enforced.
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.