Two nursing homes in Rochester, New York have been fined after Medicare inspectors reported extremely poor care. Several infractions were listed, including one instance where a resident died after choking during her evening meal.

Blossom South Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center and Blossom Health Care Center were both fined $2,000 which are the maximum that the health department can levy for a violation of state and federal regulations.

Both nursing homes have received more expensive federal fines over the past year and have been cited over and over by Medicare investigators for several different categories of patient care issues.

A third nursing home was given a lesser state penalty: a denial of payment for new Medicare/Medicaid residents until the facility cleans up it's act.

According to state inspection reports, a resident died in 2007 after choking on food. In this case, nurses did not respond in time and the emergency equipment they needed wasn't even available!

The resident had trouble breathing during dinner and a nurse did not even try to retrieve a suction machine, which was locked away in a supply closet. After the resident was taken to bed and became unresponsive a nurse finally called for an ambulance.

These issues bring to light a very widespread pattern of nursing homes' "yo-yo compliance" with state regulations, according to Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition.

"They'll have problems, and then they correct those problems so they can continue to take in new residents and get paid for them, but they've never instituted real change to take care of residents' safety," Mollot said.

Nursing home abuse must not be tolerated in any shape or form. If someone you care about has been the victim of nursing home abuse, contact a nursing home abuse attorney right away.