Woman, 87, Alleges Nursing Home Abuses : Lawsuits: The Panorama City facility is accused of beating and brutally tying down the patient, who frequently summoned staff to help her use the restroom.

An 87-year-old woman has sued a Panorama City nursing home, charging that she was beaten and brutally tied down by employees angered because she frequently summoned them to help her use the restroom.

In her lawsuit against the Sun Air Convalescent Hospital, Julita Gamalinda alleged that employees attacked her and strapped her to her bed several times while she stayed at the home during a four-week period last July and August.

Gamalinda’s allegations also prompted an investigation by state officials, who fined the facility $10,000.

Gamalinda suffers from congestive heart problems and was prescribed Lasix, a medication that doctors say causes a patient to urinate frequently.

“On many occasions, I ended up urinating in my clothes in the wheelchair because they had me tied up and would not release me to go to the bathroom,” Gamalinda said in a Van Nuys Superior Court deposition filed in preparation for a trial that is to begin Monday.

The lawsuit cites many instances in which Gamalinda’s daughters discovered her strapped around the chest to her bed or wheelchair. In one instance, the suit contends, Gamalinda was found in bed, tightly bound and soaked in her own urine. The straps were so confining, they cut off circulation to her limbs and caused her to breathe irregularly, court records say.

The unusually tight restraints caused two broken ribs, which were discovered a few days later by doctors who examined Gamalinda at Holy Cross Medical Center, the lawsuit alleges. At Holy Cross, where Gamalinda’s daughters took her after removing her from Sun Air, doctors also treated bruises on her head.

Gamalinda is seeking $1.5 million in damages, $1 million of it in punitive damages.

An attorney for the 98-bed nursing home declined to comment on the case last week. In court filings, Sun Air denied any responsibility for injuries Gamalinda may have received at the nursing home.

In the filings, the facility maintains that if Gamalinda did suffer any injuries, she might have caused them herself through her own “negligence.” The filings also suggest that unnamed “third parties” may have been responsible. Nursing home officials did not elaborate.

The state Health Facilities Division, which oversees nursing homes, investigated Gamalinda’s allegations and in September fined the facility $10,000. An agency report, identifying Gamalinda as Resident A, concluded: “The facility failed to treat Resident A as an individual with dignity and respect and subjected her to verbal and physical abuse.”

The agency fined Sun Air $5,000 for endangerment and $5,000 for not providing Gamalinda with proper care. The state report is included in court documents.

The nursing home has appealed the fine.

State officials have investigated Sun Air 18 times since March, 1990, on allegations of abuse, neglect, poor care or administrative problems, according to state records. Along with the Gamalinda case, five complaints alleging poor patient care or administrative problems were substantiated, according to state records. It was unclear from the records precisely what corrective action was taken in those cases.

Dolores Flood, supervisor in charge of the Health Facilities Division in the San Fernando Valley, said she would not discuss details of past violations at Sun Air until she had a chance to fully review the nursing home’s file after the holidays.

Gamalinda was admitted to Sun Air on July 9 by her daughters, Aurora Francisco and Beth Esguerra. At the time, she was prescribed Lasix, which reduces water retention.

Prior to entering Sun Air, Gamalinda lived with her daughters in Granada Hills and was assisted by a live-in aide. But after the aide left the job to get married, the daughters searched unsuccessfully for another one they could afford. They turned to the nursing home.

“I thought Sun Air would be good,” Francisco said. “It’s close to my work and seemed clean and nice.”

The family, which is Filipino, initially felt comfortable with Sun Air because it has many Filipinos on staff. But soon after Gamalinda was admitted, both sisters noticed problems, saying they would visit her after work and find her tightly harnessed to her bed.

“They tied my mother like an animal. You treat a dog better than that,” Francisco said. “I complained several times. Each time I complained they either said I should tell someone else or they promised to ‘take care of it.’ ”

But conditions did not improve, Francisco said.

“We starting looking for a live-in caretaker,” she said. “We knew she had to leave.”

In her deposition, Gamalinda said that on the night of Aug. 5, an employee, whom she identified only as Annabella, grew impatient with her for frequently pressing a call light to summon assistance.

“When I begged her to let me go to the bathroom again, she hit me very hard with the call light,” she said in her deposition. Gamalinda said the same employee had slapped her on several earlier occasions.

“The slapping happened many times, but I could not tell my daughters until late in my stay because I was so scared of what was happening,” she said.

Gamalinda’s daughters, in their depositions, said they spotted purple bruises on their mother’s head the next night and immediately took her to Holy Cross Medical Center. At the hospital, doctors discovered she also had suffered two broken ribs.

Not long after she gave her deposition, Gamalinda suffered a stroke in October and is conscious but unable to speak, her daughters said.

In a document filed with the state in September, the nursing home said the employee accused of hitting Gamalinda was “currently on disability leave” and would be dismissed when she returned.

In the document, Sun Air did not admit to any wrongdoing or explain the impending dismissal but said the employee would not be allowed to work at or visit the facility. In the same report, the nursing home promised to provide better training for attendants.