(A report from the Iowa Capital Dispatch) – An Iowa nursing home where gift cards for residents were stolen has been fined $500 by the state. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports State inspectors allege that in September, a Walmart gift card belonging to a resident of REM Iowa’s care facility on 33^rd Avenue in Cedar Rapids was found to have been “spent fraudulently and no receipts could be located.”

Also that month, it was determined that at least four McDonald’s gift cards belonging to a different resident had also been spent fraudulently. The inspectors later determined the facility’s program supervisor had kept resident gift cards inside an unlocked cabinet within an unlocked office during the months of June, July and August, 2025.

The facility was cited for failing to ensure all allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation were reported to the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing in a timely manner and was fined $500.

In southwest Iowa, inspectors with the Iowa Dept. of Inspections, Appeals & Licensing recently fined REM Iowa-Birch Cottage in Shelby $500, for failing to provide nursing interventions to meet a resident’s needs after a 44-year-old male resident of the home died due to a bowel obstruction that contributed to acute respiratory failure. According to inspectors’ reports, the man was breathing heavily the morning of Sept. 19, 2025, and at one point began convulsing and having seizures.

An ambulance was summoned at which point, inspectors said, the resident “acted normal, answered questions, and jumped up from the chair onto the cot” to be taken to a hospital. While at the hospital, the man’s heart stopped and he was pronounced dead at 10:40 a.m., about two hours after the incident at REM Iowa-Birch Cottage.

You can read about the other Iowa care facilities fined recently by the inspections department, HERE.