Metairie Health Care Center: PPE Failures During Feeding Tube Care - LA
The September 2025 inspection at Metairie Health Care Center, a nursing facility at 6401 Riverside Drive, documented what inspectors observed directly: a licensed practical nurse entering a resident's room, removing a PEG tube dressing with ungloved hands, disposing of it, then putting on gloves without first washing or sanitizing her hands. She cleaned the site, removed those gloves, skipped hand hygiene again, and redressed the wound with bare hands.
The resident, identified in the inspection report as Resident 2, had a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube, a device threaded directly into the stomach to deliver nutrition, fluids, and medications. The resident was also on Enhanced Barrier Precautions, a designation that existed precisely to require additional protective measures during care involving that kind of indwelling device.
The sign was already there. Inspectors noted that at 12:00 p.m., five minutes after the dressing change concluded, they observed an Enhanced Barrier Precautions sign posted on Resident 2's door. It specified that providers and staff must wear gloves for high-contact care activities, and it listed feeding tube care as an example.
The nurse did not dispute what happened. In an interview five minutes after the procedure, she told inspectors she had not worn gloves when she removed and replaced the dressing and had not performed hand hygiene after removing her gloves. She said she should have.
The Director of Nursing confirmed the same the following day. In an interview on September 3, she said the nurse did not wear gloves or perform hand hygiene appropriately during the PEG tube site care, and should have.
The facility's own policies made the requirements explicit. Its Enhanced Barrier Precautions policy called for gloves during high-contact care activities for residents with indwelling medical devices, including feeding tubes. Its hand hygiene policy, last revised in December 2009, required employees to wash their hands before and after direct resident contact, before and after handling invasive devices, after handling soiled dressings, and after removing gloves. The nurse's procedure that morning failed each of those requirements in sequence.
Resident 2's care plan, active since August 2024, listed Enhanced Barrier Precautions as a current concern and specified that staff should wear gloves as an intervention. The physician's order for the dressing change directed staff to cleanse the PEG tube site with normal saline or wound cleanser, pat it dry, apply a drain sponge, and secure it with tape.
None of that changed what the nurse did.
Inspectors rated the violation as causing minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and identified it as affecting few residents. Two residents were observed for indwelling device care during the inspection. The lapse was documented for one of them.
A PEG tube site is an open pathway into the body. Bacteria introduced during a dressing change, whether from ungloved hands or skipped hand hygiene, can travel that pathway. The precautions flagged on Resident 2's door existed because the risk was already known and already documented in the care plan. The sign, the policy, the care plan, and the physician's order all pointed in the same direction. The nurse's hands went the other way.
Resident 2's next care plan review was scheduled for September 9, 2025, six days after inspectors watched the dressing change happen.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Metairie Health Care Center from 2025-09-03 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.
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 22, 2026 · Our methodology
Metairie Health Care Center in METAIRIE, LA was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 3, 2025.
She cleaned the site, removed those gloves, skipped hand hygiene again, and redressed the wound with bare hands.
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.