Summit Health Hit With 25 Counts Alleging Poor Nursing Home Care

Summit Health Ltd., one of the nation’s largest corporate owners of medical facilities, has been charged by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office with 25 misdemeanor counts stemming from allegedly inadequate patient care at two of its nursing homes.

Summit, based in Studio City, is accused of keeping inadequate patient records, providing inadequate care and staffing and having poor plant maintenance, based on county inspections during 1985 and 1986.

Also named in the complaint are Summit’s president, William Pierpont, and five other administrators, including those at the two nursing homes involved--the Marina Convalescent Hospital in Culver City and the Canyon Convalescent Hospital in Lake View Terrace. Summit officials said they sold the latter home last December, months after the incidents for which the firm is charged allegedly occurred.

At the Canyon facility, inspectors found dried feces on a bathroom floor and in showers and also discovered patients with bedsores, authorities said.

“I’m not saying it’s easy to run nursing homes,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ardith Javan, who filed the charges Thursday in Glendale Municipal Court. “But it’s important because these people are in their trust.”

Summit, she added, “has got the money to take care of people, and it looks like they must not have been spending it on staffing.”

The publicly traded firm, which lists almost $350 million in assets, operates health-care facilities in seven states and in Saudi Arabia. Included are 18 facilities in California, including 12 in Los Angeles County.

Summit Vice President Judd Osten took issue with the charges, saying the firm has disputed some of the alleged deficiencies and pointing out that “both facilities were reinspected and found to be in compliance.”

Osten also questioned whether criminal sanctions are warranted in such cases.

“There are severe civil penalties associated with these deficiencies,” Osten said. “(But) civil penalties don’t give the district attorney the type of press that bringing criminal actions does.”

Charged along with the corporation and Pierpont are William Scott, president of the long-term care branch of the firm; Eric Paul, administrator at Marina, and three of Summit’s administrators at Canyon, David Hiatt, Frank Tamba and Daniel Koytk.

Each count carries a maximum penalty of six months in County Jail and a fine of $2,500, authorities said.