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Friday, September 5th, 2008
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SETTLEMENT REPORTED IN NEGLECT CASE
ED POPE, Mercury News Staff Writer
The first large nursing home chain in the United States charged with criminal neglect of its patients will close two of its homes in Santa Clara County as part of a settlement of eight felony charges, a county prosecutor said Saturday.
Deputy District Attorney Randy Hey told a conference of nursing home advocates in San Jose that the agreement is tentative, but he expects a final settlement with Guardian Post Acute Services Inc. of Northern California sometime next month. Hey filed charges against Guardian after the chain was indicted earlier this year by the county grand jury for some 60 serious health care violations going back to 1996.
Hey and state Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, author of a bill that would put new teeth in a law that allows relatives and friends to form family councils at the state's 1,400 nursing homes, were featured speakers at the first statewide Family Council Organizing Conference. The session, sponsored by the non-profit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, continues today from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the San Jose Hilton.
As part of the proposed settlement with Guardian -- which operates 16 homes with 1,600 patients in Northern California -- the chain would close two of its four nursing facilities in San Jose and Los Gatos, Hey said.
''It would not be appropriate at this time to comment about a possible settlement, but we are anxious to have it resolved,'' Guardian spokesman Kevin Elliott said Saturday.
Elliott reported, however, that the state Department of Health Services has notified Guardian the chain is in ''substantial'' compliance with state regulations, ''which means we have not had any serious violations in the past 12 months.''
Hey would not identify the homes that would close, but promised an orderly transfer of patients to other homes over a period of a year to minimize the disruption of residents' lives -- a vital consideration.
As another participant in the conference noted, 10 patients of a Marin County convalescent hospital died of what is referred to as ''transfer trauma'' after efforts to save that home from closing failed.
''I'm still haunted by that,'' said a tearful Sheila McGorty, the state ombudsman for nursing facilities in Marin. There is documented adverse physical and emotional impact on elderly and other dependent patients who are taken from their homes.
Hey's foray against nursing-home neglect using criminal statutes has gotten the attention of law enforcement officials across the country. He gets calls regularly from other prosecutors who are now planning similar actions against the owners of homes in their jurisdictions, he said.
Dunn's bill, SB 1551, would tighten up earlier legislation that authorized family councils ''so that the voices of the families of residents will get stronger and stronger,'' he said. It requires homes to provide a meeting room for the council, to inform residents and relatives of the existence of a family council and to reply within 10 days to any written complaint. Most homes already comply with state and federal laws that established the right to have a family council.
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