Elder Abuse Fine Called Ineffective
Relatives of elderly residents who suffered substandard care at a chain of nursing homes said Friday that they believe $2 million in penalties levied against the owner this week will do little to force real reforms at the company, one of the biggest nursing home operators in the nation.
Beverly Enterprises Inc. pleaded no contest Thursday to two felony elder abuse charges, and agreed to pay the civil penalties for a range of violations that allegedly led to bed sores, dehydration, malnutrition and improper medication among patients in the company’s 60 facilities in California. The company did not admit wrongdoing in the civil case.
“It’s a Band-Aid effect--$2 million is nothing to these people. It’s nothing,” said Nancy Parsons, whose 87-year-old father, William Marthai, died after a feeding tube was inserted improperly into his abdomen at the Beverly La Cumbre home in Santa Barbara.
“The fact that they would not admit their practices were horribly felonious makes me think things will be back to business as usual within the next two months,” Parsons said.
Attorneys, advocates for the elderly and others who have complained of neglect and abuse in California nursing homes expressed similar sentiments Friday.
“Thank God somebody finally nailed them, but $2 million is not nearly enough,” said Joan Sheppard, whose 98-year-old mother, Eva Calt, spent three years at Beverly Manor in Canoga Park. She said her mother had often been neglected--left for hours at a time with dirty underclothes, infections and other problems.
“Those places should be shut down. You can’t just give them a slap on the wrist.”
The case settled Thursday stemmed from the deaths at Santa Barbara’s La Cumbre Convalescent Hospital of Marthai and Laura K. Simmons, a 102-year-old former church deaconess who suffered from severely infected bed sores and died in July 2000.
The La Cumbre facility was sold by Beverly in October.
Beverly Chief Executive Dave Devereaux said in a statement issued Friday that the settlement “implies accountability for unfortunate, isolated incidents, but certainly no criminal intent or actions on the part of Beverly or any of its executives.”
“We opted to settle rather than fight a lengthy court battle that ties up financial and human resources that should be dedicated to caring for the elderly,” he said.
Company officials say they have doubled the number of clinical consultants in California and promised to increase management and supervisory resources. They did not provide more details.
Sandra Michioku, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office, said Friday that the settlement also requires the company to provide authorities with an annual report detailing how it is complying with the court-ordered requirements, including more staffing and better training.
The company also will have a designated compliance officer at each of its facilities.
Skeptics about the effects of this week’s settlement cite the company’s past legal problems.
In August 1999, Beverly Enterprises agreed to reimburse the federal government $170 million and pay a $5-million fine to settle Medicare fraud charges. At the time, the payment was considered one of the largest of its kind.
In 1998, jurors in Siskiyou County awarded a record $95 million to a 66-year-old stroke victim whose hip and shoulder were broken when an aide at a Beverly facility, unable to find help, tried to move her from a bed to a chair.
That settlement was later reduced to about $3 million, said Prescott Cole, staff attorney with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.
“For this industry, it’s not mostly about money, it’s all about money,” Cole said Friday.
Cole said he believes the current case could turn the industry around for the better because the company was punished, not just civilly with fines, but criminally by being forced to enter a plea.
“They have agreed they are corporate felons,” Cole said.
