Amid a pair of critical and compromising media investigations, the Georgia Department of Veterans Services (GDVS) has decided to go in a different direction at the Georgia War Veterans Home in south Milledgeville and change contractors.
GDVS recently awarded a $177 million contract to Healthcare Management Resources Governmental Service (HMRGS), a South Carolina-based company that “focuses exclusively on State Veterans Home,” according to its website. HMRGS is slated to take over operations on July 1.
On the way out, meanwhile, is STGi International, which has been getting clobbered by The Current, a southeast Georgia media outlet that launched an in-depth investigation into the Veterans Home in Milledgeville last year. The Current’s “six-month investigation was based on interviews with seven staff members who worked directly in patient care there and veterans families, as well as records and documents,” according to an article released earlier this month.
Added the article: “An estimated 50% of staff newly hired by STGi in 2025 had quit by year’s end.
• Specialized nurses assigned to the Memory Care Unit at the facility were frequently reassigned from that floor to plug staffing holes on other floors, leaving the most vulnerable residents without proper levels of trained caregivers.
• Nurses without licenses to dispense medications have given agitated residents psychotropic drugs not authorized by the attending physician, as a way to lessen workloads for staff.
• While the contract with the state demands two fulltime licensed social workers, a key part of a care team who help the psychological wellbeing of residents, the facility hired one without the required license.”
STGi “did not have any experience with skilled nursing homes or memory care facilities before Georgia awarded it the Milledgeville contract in 2024,” added the article.
WMAZ/Channel 13 in Macon also produced several critical stories about the Veterans Home this spring. One highlighted the findings of the facility’s most recent Department of Veterans Affairs State Veterans Home Survey Report, which listed 10 different “deficiencies,” including issues with its food preparation, storage of drugs and biologicals, preventing the spread of infection, as well as fire assessment. The survey was taken last summer. At the time, the facility had 262 “available beds,” and there were 165 people living on the campus at the time.
PruittHealth previously ran the facility for 27 years. In 2023, however, the company and the GDVS couldn’t agree to a new contract figure. PruittHealth was asking “for more funding to offset rising staff costs,” according to The Current. When PruittHealth backed out, “STGi was the only qualified bidder to take over the contract,” added the news outlet.