Nursing home workers ask McCormick to deny ambassador nominee

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(The Center Square) – Unionized health care workers across Pennsylvania want U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick to block the nomination of a nursing home magnate they say developed the playbook for “maximizing profits” at the expense of patients.

Ben Landa, through SentosaCare, owns more than 100 facilities nationwide and seven in Pennsylvania alone. And now, he’s under consideration to become the U.S. ambassador to Hungary – a role his former employees say he doesn’t deserve.

Liz Wright, a certified nursing assistant who has worked in the same Cumberland County facility for more than 30 years, said the compassion that drew her to the profession had been eroded once Landa took ownership in 2017. 

“As of now, out of my own pocket, I buy my own supplies – soaps, lotions, deodorant, food,” she told The Center Square. “It’s not enough.”

Lindsey Burns, a licensed practical nurse for one of Landa’s facilities in Lawrence County, said understaffing “wore down” workers. During the pandemic, employees reused masks for a week at a time.

“As nursing home caregivers, we always go above and beyond for our residents. I buy them gifts for Christmas and their birthdays since many don’t have any family,” Burns said. “While we were sacrificing for our residents, we learned that Ben Landa was getting rich, and that just makes me angry.”

Landa, born to Czechoslovakian immigrants who fled the Nazis, is a prominent Jewish conservative benefactor in New York who bought his first nursing home in 1987.

In the four decades since, Sentosa has faced legal action for violating labor laws, wrongful death, negligence and medical malpractice. In 2019, a federal judge found that Landa and his coowner, Bent Phillipson, trafficked Filipino nurses into several of their New York facilities, but were not paying prevailing wage or providing safe working conditions.

President Donald Trump ultimately tapped Landa to become the Hungarian ambassador in October, citing his connection to the region and his support for Israel. He has yet to receive a formal vote from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the full chamber.

McCormick, as a committee member, can reject the nomination. Both Wright and Burns say he must.

“We can’t let Senator McCormick award a U.S. ambassadorship to Ben Landa, because what message does that send to other nursing home owners?” Burns said. “What larger message does that send about our values as a country?”

McCormick’s office told The Center Square that it’s the senator’s responsibility to review every nomination, saying “as he has done in the past, he will evaluate each nominee’s qualifications to serve, through the committee hearing process, prior to determining his final vote.”