Assisted living center boosts failed kitchen score

NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. — An assisted living center in Newton County increased its inspection score by more than 30 points within a week of failing a kitchen inspection.

Merryvale Assisted Living has been a place for seniors to live, eat and socialize for 17 years. On Tuesday, it failed with a 64 during a routine county health inspection of the kitchen.

Executive Director Gena McCLendon said she's incredibly disappointed and blown away by the poor results.

Channel 2's Carol Sbarge talked to the management about how they fixed the problems.
The first violation on the inspection report said the person in charge was not performing duties as required as demonstrated by multiple risk factor violation.

Other violations included observed manual slicer and other utensils stored unclean, observed potentially hazardous food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit and observed improper vertical separation of raw animal foods and ready-to-eat foods.

"Primarily we found one of our coolers – one of three coolers – was not holding the temperatures stable and as they went to check we didn't want to take any chances and we discarded food," said McClendon.

McClendon said within two hours they had a repair person in fixing the problem, which was a loss of freon.

The Newton County health inspector returned Monday and re-inspected. This time, Merryvale Assisted Living got a 97, which is an A.

"Oh thrilled and that's where we live. We were delighted. We're back where we've been historically. We've always had very good reports," McClendon said.

She said the patients' care is the facility's priority. She is confident that their new passing score will remain the standard. She said they have gone over again with all workers their regulations and standards.

WSBTV