Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

Santa Rosa Care Center, a nursing home located in Tucson, Arizona, was hit with a $17,500 fine from the state in response to more than twenty-four violations discovered in an April 2008 investigation. The facility also paid a $7,000 federal fine and had its Medicare payments suspended until corrections were made to prevent "substandard quality of care".

The violations included:

- A "do not resuscitate" (DNR) order was improperly documented.

- A resident who fell was given Tylenol for ankle pain, even though the resident equated the pain as an "8" on a "10" point scale; the resident was diagnosed with a fractured ankle nearly a week after the fall.

- A resident suffering from dementia with a history of "sexually inappropriate behaviors" was discovered exhibiting such behavior and the victim's physician and family were not notified.

- A staff member said that if residents don't object or resist, staff considers sexual activity to be consensual even if the resident's ability to consent was not assessed.

- Residents and visitors to the facility complained of urine odors.

- A resident suffered a seizure and fell to the floor and was unconscious for approximately ten minutes. The resident's condition deteriorated and he became confused and needed assistance with walking and eating. The resident's medical provider was notified for ten days and it was later determined that the resident had suffered interacranial bleeding as result of the fall.

Santa Rosa Health Care Center is no stranger to violations of care. In fact, according to an article by the Arizona Daily Star, it ranks second for complaints on how the staff treats residents and has more abuse/neglect citations than any other Tucson nursing home.

An early 2006 inspection revealed that multiple residents were afraid of the staff. One aide pointed his middle finger at a resident and pretended that he would poke the resident in the eye. A male nurse would twist resident's arms and put residents in chokeholds or headlocks. One resident began to cry and shake while describing a scene that occurred in the facility's dining room. A man refused to take off his hat while eating. A nurse knocked the hat off of the resident's head. He stood up to leave the table and a staff member twisted the man's arm behind his back to force him to sit down again.

Other employees at the facility acknowledged to inspectors that they knew of the abuse but were afraid of retaliation. They stated that nurses were in such demand that a nurse told them that the administrator would not believe a lower-level employee.

The facility also received two more citations for harming residents in 2006. In one incident, a resident did not receive her anti-anxiety medications for two months, even though staff documented chronic episodes of yelling, cursing, removing clothing, and pacing. In the second incident, the facility was cited for not creating a Care Plan to keep a resident who had a history of falls safe. This resident, who entered the facility with a history of falls, broke an ankle after a fall in March. She fell again in September in the shower and bruised her hand and tore her skin. She was sent to the emergency room four days later with bleeding and bruising. She fell six more times during the first two weeks of October.