Facility Involved in Murder/Suicide Had Thirty-Two Substantiated Complaints in One Year
We discussed the tragic murder/suicide at Oakland Springs Health Center in our previous blog.
The California Department of Public Health is studying a letter written by Diana Harden concerning the treatment her daughter, Yvette, received at the facility. Diana Harden mailed the letter to ABC7 News prior to killing her daughter and herself on Sunday, September 12, 2009. Officials say that the allegations contained in the letter could lead to the facility's license being revoked.
Jennifer Rodriguez met Diana and Yvette Harden after she suffered a stroke and came to live at Oakland Springs. She calls them her best friends. Rodriguez confirms that Yvette suffered abuse at the hands of facility staff and alleges that she suffered abuse as well. Rodriguez said, "I'd be sitting outside her room and heard them say that to her. I heard, 'You're a fat pig. I don't want to deal with you, nobody else does either, that's the way it is, we have to and I don't like it', like that, I mean really."
I-Team examined the case files involving Oakland Springs for the past year. They found 32 substantiated complaints. Among the allegations:
- Staff failed to notify a doctor for four days that a resident had broken her finger;
- Staff failed to investigate a resident's complaint that a nurse's aide hit him in the forehead, stomach, right shoulder, and chest area; and
- Staff failed to keep a resident clean and free of feces and urine and a hospital staff found him in that condition.
The owner of the facility, Tony Perez, denied the abuse complaints. Oakland Springs Health Center's neuropsychologist, Dr. Sherman Weldon, callously alleges that Yvette Harden's talk about wanting to die was just a bluff. He said, "She could get more attention onto herself by making statements that involved her longevity than in any other way."
