New owner is seeking
to reform Westview Manor
Staff writer
Westview Manor in Peabody is under new ownership a year and a half after being placed in receivership for deplorable conditions, a quarter of a million dollars in unpaid bills, and financial abuse of residents.
Ownership transferred May 29 to Access Mental Health of Wichita.
Monica Morales, owner of Access Mental Health and a longtime psychiatric nurse practitioner, has plans to improve the lives of Westview Manor residents.
“It’s been my passion to provide care for the mentally ill,” Morales said.
Morales hopes to provide rehabilitation services and life skills training so residents can return to living in society instead of being warehoused.
“I have so many plans and hopes for it,” Morales said. “They need rehabilitation. They don’t just need to be warehoused there. They need skills to be able to go back into the community. We need to be able to give these residents a better quality of life, and that’s what we plan to do.”
Conditions at Westview were so poor in December 2018 that a judge put Westview into emergency receivership of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services.
An inspection of the 45-bed adult-care facility found numerous incidents of exploitation of residents, misappropriation of as much as $1,094 residents’ money, and missing narcotics. The inspection also found the condition of the building was deplorable, and vendors and suppliers were not being paid. Employee payroll checks had bounced twice.