A South Carolina senior living facility has fired an employee over an offensive remark posted on social media, and another community is investigating a derogatory post allegedly made by an employee.
Lutheran Homes of South Carolina fired an employee who worked in the rehabilitation and healthcare center of its Chapin, SC, continuing care retirement community, for what it called “an extremely offensive and inappropriate remark” on social media.
Published reports stated that the employee, who worked at Heritage at Lowman, used a racial slur in a Facebook post. Lutheran Homes of South Carolina is a faith-based, non-profit organization that offers independent living, assisted living, memory care, nursing and rehabilitation at five communities.
“The former employee’s comments do not reflect our ministry’s mission and values and violate our organization’s workplace policies,” a June 11 post on Lutheran Homes’ Facebook page reads. “We do not condone this type of behavior and this person is no longer part of our organization.”
At the same time, Carolina Gardens at West Columbia, a South Carolina assisted living and memory care community, announced on social media that it is investigating an employee who allegedly made “hurtful and vulgar” comments online.
The announcement came after screen grabs of messages were shared on social media and calls came for the woman, identified as a nurse, to lose her job, according to published reports.
The woman filed an incident report with the Town of Lexington Police Department, stating that her account was hacked while she was on vacation and that the posts were fake.
A June 10 Facebook message from CEO Sevy Petras stated that Priority Life Care, the owners and managers of Carolina Gardens, were aware of a social media post “containing hurtful and vulgar language” linked to one of their employees and promised an investigation. “The tone of this post is contrary to our values and culture that we adhere to.”
“We at Priority Life Care are fully committed to maintaining a work environment that is free form intimidation and harassment based on race, creed, color or any other characteristics protected by applicable law in the workplace,” the post reads.
A June 15 Facebook post indicated that the company has hired a third party to complement its internal investigation and expects to have “critical information” this week. The company indicated that “appropriate actions have been taken internally until the investigations are complete.”
“We have an intolerance for a divide, prejudice or abuse,” the post reads. “We are all in this together.”
Petras told McKnight’s Senior Living that Priority Life Care will be sharing additional information when the third-party investigation is complete. McKnight’s Senior Living will have an update at that time.
