State Fines Center for the Disabled

The state Department of Health Services announced Wednesday that it has fined a state-run center for the developmentally disabled in Costa Mesa $80,000 and issued the most severe citation possible after a patient suffocated there a year ago.

The department concluded that the 30-year-old patient at Fairview Developmental Center died because of poor care.

A staff member making rounds on July 5, 2002, found the woman at 5 a.m. between the side rail and her bed, with her head on the floor and her feet on the bed, according to department documents. She was not breathing and had no pulse.

The woman, whose name was not released, was severely mentally retarded and suffered from spastic movements and impaired speech. The patient “was totally dependent on staff for all activities of daily living,” department records said. “She lacks adequate protective reflexes and awareness of surrounding environment.”

Deputy State Atty. Gen. John Tavetian, who is representing Fairview, declined to comment because of pending litigation.

Fairview will have to pay only $52,000 because it did not appeal the case, as state law allows.

The center could have been fined $100,000. Leah Brooks, a health services spokeswoman, said the facility did not have a recent history of citations, which was the reason it did not receive the maximum fine.

Department records show that an extra railing was placed on one side of the woman’s bed to prevent her from falling out.

The side rails on 32 beds in her unit were repaired 45 times the previous year, according to the department. According to department interviews with Fairview staff, when the head of the bed was raised, a gap opened between it and the side rails.

The agency’s report found that Fairview’s failure “to maintain side rails in operable condition caused Patient A to get caught between the side rails and mattress and die.”