Joliet’s Salem Village residents moved out, but legal issues remain

All residents have been moved out of Salem Village Nursing and Rehabilitation, but troubles remain.

Residents were moved out ahead of schedule, indicating an orderly closure at the Joliet nursing home, which was much different than what happened at a St. Louis facility also owned by Makhlouf Suissa, who is listed as the primary owner at Salem Village on government websites.

Northview Village in St. Louis shut down without warning days before Christmas, leaving the state to find new homes for its residents and employees suddenly out of jobs looking for their pay, according to numerous news accounts of the abrupt closure.

Salem Village and Northfield Village are among seven nursing home facilities for which Suissa is listed as an owner in government records. Four are in Illinois, and all but Salem Village are in the St. Louis area or Illinois towns near St. Louis.

At least one lawsuit has been filed concerning the sudden shutdown of Northfield Village.

The problems linked to the abrupt closing of Northfield Village were not repeated at Salem Village.

But the Joliet nursing home has other problems that linger after the apparent orderly removal of its residents.

Salem Village faces more than a dozen lawsuits still open in Will County Circuit Court, most of them wrongful death suits. The most recent wrongful death suit blames Salem Village for the Nov. 17 death of Michael Pappas, 61, who was attacked by a fellow resident in a laundry room at the facility.

The death made headlines and also led to a state investigation that was one of 14 conducted in 2023 by the Illinois Department of Public Health into complaints about conditions at Salem Village, according to the agency’s website.

IDPH spokesman Michael Claffey said he could not comment on whether Salem Village ownership faces any potential state action from unfinished investigations.

Claffey said that all residents had been moved out of Salem Village as of Feb. 8, and that the IDPH was not aware of any issues concerning pay for employees.

Alpesh Patel at the Will County Health Department said Salem Village residents were transferred to facilities in or near Will County.

“About 75% of them were transferred to facilities within Will County and [the] remaining [went] to the neighboring counties in Illinois,” Patel said in an email.

Salem Village has not responded to repeated requests for comment by the Herald-News, and a receptionist at the nursing home hung up on a reporter this week when asked for the name of the person now in charge of the facility.

Bryan Kopman, a Joliet attorney who represents Salem Village, would not comment about the nursing home’s closure and the lawsuits it continues to face.