As published in The Independent June 14, 2000
Editor's Note: This article is the second in a series examining the care that residents claim they have endured at SunBridge Care and Rehabilitation in Burlingame. Following an article written about the site in March, the Independent has received numerous calls from other area residents alleging abuse and neglect.
By Dwana Bain
Staff Reporter
A dead body -the second of her three roommates to die in a six-week period - was left in the bed next to her for hours, until the morning when another shift came on.
That's just one of the numerous recent events that "Lucy" - an 83-year old custodial resident at SunBridge Care and Rehabilitation Burlingame - claims to have endured at the embattled nursing home.
Inside the loud facility, amid the overwhelming smell of antiseptic, Lucy -- who asked that her real name not be used -- stays in her room with a portable toilet.
She's lived here four years. She will live in a nursing home the rest of her life.
One day, her son brought her a copy of an Independent article published in March, which described elder-abuse allegations against the facility.
"It's all true," she told the Independent. "And there's more."
Lucy is one of a number of people in the area who have alleged that the Trousdale Drive nursing home abuses and neglects its patients, including leaving incontinent patients in diapers for hours at a time, failing to brush patient's teeth and failing to protect patients from abuse by the nursing home's other residents.
According to a friend of a SunBridge resident, staff members at the site have allegedly been meeting with family members and friends of residents, stating that whatever might be published about the nursing home is untrue. The director of SunBridge Burlingame told the Independent that he was not allowed to respond to the allegations, and declined even to listen to the latest list of complaints against the nursing home.
Karen Gilliland, the company's corporate spokesperson, did not respond when first contacted in May regarding some of Lucy's allegations.
Hard to prove
If several recent claims against SunBridge are proved valid, they could add to the facility's already long list of citations, which include fines for verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
Unfortunately, according to Pat McGinnis, Executive Director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, proving abuse is a battle often lost.
"Sixty-six percent of the complaints filed in this state are unsubstantiated. For all the thousands of complaints that are filed, that's ridiculous," McGinnis said. It's not that the claims are untrue, she clarified, they just cannot be easily proven.
McGinnis said that in San Mateo County, the blame falls in part on the California Department of Health Services Licensing and Certification district office in Daly City. "It's not a good office. They're very far behind in even checking the complaints."
Ken August, a spokesperson for the California Department of Health Services, disputes McGinnis' assertion.
"There is a requirement that staff respond to complaints within a 48-hour time period," he said. "If the complaint is substantiated, there will be investigations, citations and fines, depending upon the nature of the problem and the severity."
He pointed out that all citations and fines against facilities are evidence of the state taking action.
Still, he acknowledges that some complaints can't be substantiated. He attributes this in part to fact that people can call anonymously, which means some complaints have no evidence.
But he said he hopes that residents or family members do complain if they feel they have valid cause.
"We recognize that we cannot be stationed in a facility 24 hours a day."
If they see a problem, "We count on them to pick up the phone and call us."
Patients in nursing homes are usually physically frail and often suffer from Alzheimer's disease, dementia or other mental impairments. Advocates say that even patients with solid mental faculties are often too shy to speak, because they may not have been raised in environments where they were encouraged to be assertive.
And, when patients do complain, they often mix in less significant complaints -- such as a staff person being rude. This clouds the more serious issues, according to McGinnis.
"We tell them to complain about the big stuff," she said. "Complain about the life-threatening stuff."
But some friends and family members say that they tried first complaining to SunBridge Burlingame, but have made little progress in speaking to anyone affiliated with the site or it's parent company. A friend of one SunBridge resident who died recently told the Independent that she has been searching for answers as to what happened at the facility to lead to her friend's death, but she's been facing a wall of uncooperative staff who won't release any details.
"The door's closed," she said. "And that tells you that there's something terrible behind that door."
A tarnished image
SunBridge Burlingame is owned by Sun Healthcare Group Inc., based in Albuquerque, New Mexico; a company with a tightly controlled public relations department. In news stories around the country, Sun Healthcare representatives have routinely issued only brief statements to the press regarding allegations against the group.
The company does, however, post the results of a "stories of the year" contest on its website -- "Heartwarming and uplifting, interesting and diverse" stories about nursing home patients -- according to the website press release. The executive who orchestrated the contest is quoted as stating: "This contest gives [nursing home staff] an opportunity to tell stories the community may not hear otherwise."
There are other stories that emerge from the company's nursing
homes that have been less flattering. For example:
- June 1998: SunRise Care and Rehabilitation Burlingame - now known as SunBridge -- the California Department of Health Services issued a class-B citation for failure to protect a resident from sexual abuse.
- August1998: SunBridge Care and Rehabilitation Burlingame (formerly SunRise) was issued a CDHS class-AA citation and a $10,000 fine in association with a resident's death.
- August 1998: The families of four deceased residents at Fountainview Healthcare Center - a Sun-owned facility in Sacramento -- charged Sun Healthcare with willful misconduct, intentional infliction of emotional distress, elder abuse, negligence and one case of wrongful death.
- October 1998: In a case that made national headlines, a 24-year-old comatose woman gave birth after being raped at Town Manor, a Sun-owned facility in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
While these incidents happened two years ago, SunBridge Burlingame has been cited within the last nine months, when a patient developed an infection and had a leg amputated, allegedly as a result of neglect.
SunBridge may be in line for even more citations and possible financial penalties, especially if Lucy's charges are upheld.
Lucy, who is in SunBridge due to a debilitating physical injury, but who is lucid, can only walk or stand with assistance and needs help to carry herself to the toilet.
"They have a [nurse's] aid ... every time she comes in the room, she immediately tries to pick a fight ...When she came in to assist me she said "Oh you're not ready," Lucy explained, adding that she can wait only a few minutes from the time she calls for help.
"I said 'Don't waste any time just get the commode to me.' Right in the middle of what she was doing she just stopped and turned around and left. She ran in and out. She wanted me to soil my bed. She wanted me to soil my clothes. She wanted me to go [to the bathroom] on the floor so she could put me in diapers ...Finally she got me on the commode, then she wouldn't come back."
Lucy says she was left on the toilet for at least 20 minutes, during which time she desperately dialed her phone to the operators in each of the facility's four units to get help.
When she reached employees, "They started laughing and hung up," she said. "This is entertainment for [the employees]. They think this is all funny and it gives them something to talk about."
According to Lucy, as she sat waiting for help, another patient - who Lucy has alleged has attacked her before -- entered her room. "She grabbed me by the arm and shook me."
"For [the staff] to allow another resident to come into my room and physically shake me, how can they do that?" asked Lucy, who called the police to report the alleged assault.
"I told the police [officer] all this, she said 'You know what Lucy? We are limited. There is only so much we can do.'" She said the officer then told her to move to another nursing home.
According to the Burlingame Police Department, no report or investigation resulted from the incident. The incident was noted in the police computer as "an ongoing problem between two residents." The officer who responded to that call was unavailable for comment.
This isn't the first time Lucy has called the police. She said she once passed out and woke up on the floor in a pool of blood. She said she had to beg and threaten a nursing home employee dial 911.
Three of Lucy's roommates have died since April. Her second roommate died about 8:45 p.m. on May 15, according to the patient's death certificate.
Although nursing home staff realized around 10 p.m. that the woman had died, they left the corpse in the room with Lucy until morning.
"They left her in here for hours after she expired ...It made me so nervous and so sick."
The nursing assistant who found the body allegedly told Lucy that she didn't know how long the patient was there. "We left at 1 o'clock [a.m.]," she told Lucy.
When the Independent visited Lucy at SunBridge in April, another of her roommates had died just a few days earlier.
The woman's death certificate listed her official cause of death as urosepsis, a bacterial infection of the bloodstream that originated in the urinary tract. Lucy believes her roommate's infection set in because of the alleged neglect of nursing home staff she had witnessed.
"They would get her up around 9 or 10 o' clock [a.m.]. She would sit there in her chair, in her stupor until 9 or 10 at night." Lucy said, alleging that the woman's diaper was only changed once every 12-14 hours.
"She was slowly going downhill," Lucy said, "I even suggested then that they should do something."
What they did, according to Lucy, was try to drug her. "They had an idea that since I'm alert I would talk to someone [about her roommate's death.]"
Lucy said that a doctor she had never seen before entered her room and told her he was a neurologist. "I've never needed a neurologist," Lucy told the Independent, "I don't even know what they are."
Nevertheless, the doctor prescribed medication for her. Lucy refused to take it, though she said employees tried to force her to. "They were holding out my breakfast, my water," she said. No one told her what the drug was or why it was prescribed, she said, but she looked at the name on the prescription once: Luvox, which according to "The Physician's Desk Reference," is typically prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can have a sedative effect on patients.
McGinnis said that in trying to force medication on Lucy, the nursing home violated both state and federal law. According to McGinnis, the outcome of a lawsuit CANHR filed against the California Department of Health Services resulted in a law that strictly controls physical or chemical restraints - such as sedative drugs -- on patients.
McGinnis said the law states that in order for such restraints to be given, a facility must have "informed consent" from the resident or a resident's guardian. The patient or representative must be told what the restraint is, why it is given and what the effects are.
According to Elizabeth Quijada, whose stepfather stayed at SunBridge recently, the nursing home did not ask anyone for permission when they allegedly gave her stepfather sedatives. Quijada believes that her stepfather suffered an adverse reaction to the medication. "He woke up and he was just going crazy and pulled the curtains down and was just really, really agitated ... he is the most gentle person I had ever met."
After the incident, Quijada asked to see her stepfather's list of medications, and discovered the sedative among the list.
"The doctor said, "Older patients do well with this," Quijada told the Independent. "She said, 'Well, we'll give him something else.' I said, 'you'll give him nothing!'"
Lucy maintains that they have tried several times to make her take the Luvox, though she continues to refuse.
"I cannot tolerate this abuse. It's too much," she said, "It's ruining my health."
Lucy says that people tell her she should just move to another facility. But she said there's no guarantee another place would treat her better, and furthermore, that a victim shouldn't be the one to be punished.
She said she feels an obligation to help other patients at SunBridge.
"I want to correct it for everyone's sake. I feel if I can make someone else's life more livable, then I've done something worthwhile while I'm here in the nursing home."
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