Owners of El Toro Homes for Elderly Deny on Stand Any Abuses

An elderly resident was handcuffed to her bed at an El Toro convalescent home only as a last resort, the home’s owner testified Wednesday.

Ingrid Henshall, owner of a home called Love Haven I, and her son, Mike Cabael, owner of Love Haven II with his wife, Karen, testified in defense of their operations Wednesday as a state Department of Social Services hearing resumed. The state and some former employees have accused the homes and their owners of mismanagement, abuse and neglect of patients, including handcuffings, coercion, beatings and force-feedings.

The Bark Street homes were ordered closed April 6. Hearings, which began June 16, are to establish the legitimacy of state allegations and to determine whether the Love Havens should remain closed.

Cabael testified he had to handcuff one of his residents, identified as Maria S., 85, to halt her increasingly violent behavior while waiting for sedatives to take effect.

“It got to the point where I was holding her for hours while she was literally beating me from head to toe,” he testified.

During her “fits of rage,” Maria would scratch and bite herself, shred her clothes and verbally abuse at the staff, Cabael said. After getting written permission of Maria’s family in December, 1985, Cabael tried a soft vest restraint “a couple of hundred times,” but she would wriggle until the restraint was around her neck, strangling her, he said.

After consulting a medical supply firm, Cabael said, he tried wrist restraints, but the resident found her way out of those also. On the “20th or 30th” attempt, Maria struggled so hard that the knots tightened and cut off circulation to her hands. Finally, in midsummer, 1986, Cabael said, he resorted to handcuffs wrapped with washcloths.

“We didn’t know if it was right in our minds,” he testified, while also insisting that it was the only measure to kept her from hurting herself.

Events described during testimony last week by former employees and state investigators took on a very different light Wednesday as defense attorney Steven B. Fishman addressed charge after charge and tried to discredit state witnesses.

Last Thursday, former employee Lisa De Gross testified that Henshall, Cabael’s mother, taunted and verbally abused resident Dorothy L., jabbing her in the stomach with her finger and calling her a “fat cow.”

As Cabael saw it, Dorothy--who came to Love Haven I a decade ago, stayed four years, went back to her family and came to Love Haven II in mid-1986--was an old friend of Henshall. The ribbing was lighthearted, and usually went:

Henshall: “You big fat slob.”

Dorothy: “You skinny little runt.”

“And then they’d sit down and share cigarettes,” he said.

De Gross had an ax to grind, Fishman tried to prove. Cabael said De Gross was fired after Cabael found a resident’s tranquilizer capsule in an empty cigarette carton belonging to De Gross. De Gross last week denied that she even knew what the capsule did, but Cabael said she did know.

Cabael also contended that De Gross had stolen at least two bottles of wine from his liquor cabinet. Her “lousy disposition” and “chronic hangovers” also contributed to her dismissal, he said.

Another employee, Linda Humpal--who June 17 accused Henshall of physically abusing residents and denying one of them food because the resident had shared hers with Cabael’s cat and two dogs--also had been fired, Cabael testified Wednesday. He said Humpal was dismissed in June, 1986, three months after being hired, for being caught smoking marijuana, frequently missing work or showing up late and “the way she handled the residents, and her cleanliness was not up to our standards.”

The other prosecution witness, Ann Thacker, a friend of Humpal, quit the following week, Cabael said. She had been doing her job well, he said.

Two witnesses also took the stand Wednesday and portrayed the Love Havens as exactly that, havens of love.

On her unannounced inspections of Love Haven I and II as the director of the Long-Term Care Ombudsmen Program, an advocate group, in 1979-84, Muriel Greensaft said she “saw a lot of fun, a lot of love, a lot of hugging and kissing.”

Greensaft testified that she went back last winter as state allegations were being leveled and saw one of the residents that the state contends has been abused. As Henshall approached the woman, Greensaft said, the resident stretched out her arms and smiled.

“I thought, ‘God, this (Cabael) is a person being charged with elder abuse?’ ” she said.

Linda Dean, an advocate for the Orange County Council on Aging, also painted a rosy picture of clean, friendly homes with residents well cared for.

Fishman said he will try to discredit all the allegations of abuse. He hopes Administrative Law Judge John A. Willd will recommend to the Department of Social Services that the mismanagement and license-violation charges do not warrant the permanent closure of the facilities.

Minor procedural complaints prompted the state to “skulk around,” looking for bigger charges that would close the homes, he said, which gave disgruntled employees their chance to level abuse charges.

Those procedural charges include maintaining more than two immobile residents at Love Haven II, contrary to the license; housing seven residents instead of the six stipulated by the license; failing to file timely death notices, and accepting a client without the proper medical facilities for his care.

The use of behavioral restraints is also prohibited by state law.

Testimony is scheduled to continue until Friday, but Fishman said it could wind up Friday after Henshall testifies. Willd said he should be able to send a recommendation to the Department of Social Services within 20 days after the hearing concludes.