VENTURA : State Fines Victoria Care Center $10,000

State health inspectors have levied a new $10,000 fine against a Ventura nursing home that last year racked up one of the highest levels of state fines of any California nursing home.

In a citation issued Wednesday, the state charged the Victoria Care Center on Ralston Avenue with poor patient care in an incident involving an 86-year-old woman who died of blood poisoning that stemmed from bedsores, said Bill Jennings, supervisor for the state health services department in Ventura.

Last year, the state issued four citations against Victoria Care Center, three for poor resident care and one for keeping inaccurate patient records.

Together, the 1992 citations carried fines of more than $50,000, the 13th-highest amount levied against any California nursing home last year, according to the nonprofit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform in San Francisco.

Victoria Care officials did not return phone calls.

But Jennings said the latest citation involves an 86-year-old woman who moved into Victoria Care on June 11.

“The patient came in and developed bedsores and she went downhill,” Jennings said. In one instance, he said, the nursing home staff left the woman for 1 1/2 hours in a wet bed.

Just 12 days after moving into the nursing home, the woman had to be taken to a hospital for the bedsores. Two days later she was dead.

Jennings said the hospital listed the primary cause of death as blood poisoning stemming from the woman’s bedsores.

Bedsores arise, he said, when patients who are confined to their beds are not moved or turned regularly.

Jennings said the state is continuing its investigation of Victoria Care.