Escondido CA Nursing Home Fined $100,000
Posted by Patti on February 25th, 2006 / Print This Post
This is BAD. Really BAD.
An Escondido nursing home yesterday received the state’s most serious citation and a $100,000 fine after a resident receiving oxygen was left alone while smoking a cigarette. He caught fire and burned to death.It is the fourth state accusation in three years against the 98-bed facility, now named Palomar Heights Care Center.
A state health official said the man’s death Jan. 11 is the second attributed to mismanagement by a California nursing home in at least a year.
“Even though the resident was advised he shouldn’t be smoking while his oxygen was turned on, he wasn’t wearing a flame-retardant apron as required and the attendant left him alone,” said Anna Ramirez of the state Division of Licensing and Certification’s coastal region, which includes San Diego County.
Palomar Heights administrator Sharon Constable said the 66-year-old man’s death “was deemed accidental,” but declined further comment.
In state documents, the nursing home promised to reassess any resident at risk for injury while smoking and to prohibit people from smoking while receiving oxygen.
Ramirez called the incident “significant and critical.” The resident was visible through a surveillance camera, Ramirez and state documents said, but the nurse who was supposed to be watching him was instead filling out charts.
“She wasn’t aware that the resident had caught on fire until she heard someone call a code red,” Ramirez said.
The man burned for six minutes just before 10 p.m., with injuries to his face, torso, arms and legs. He was spotted by a laundry worker, who said she “saw flames coming from outside the main door … and saw (the resident) seated in his wheelchair burning from the neck down,” according to the state documents.
The resident was pronounced dead at Palomar Medical Center, which has no relationship to Palomar Heights.
The patient had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had problems breathing as a result of his “around the clock” smoking habit, Ramirez said, which was all the more reason the staff should have made sure that if he were allowed to smoke he would be directly observed.
“You don’t light matches and have an open flame around oxygen. Everyone knows that, especially in a health facility where oxygen is very likely to be used,” Ramirez said. “This facility and the attendants were well aware he was being noncompliant, all the more reason to make sure he would be directly observed.”
In addition, the state said the nursing home was cited twice in 2004 with lesser violations carrying fines of $1,000 and $900. In one case, Dec. 31, the facility failed to follow doctor’s orders and as a result, a resident was found to be without pulse, blood pressure or respiration.
The other incident occurred July 7, 2004, when a certified nursing assistant placed a pillowcase over a resident’s head. State regulators said the facility failed to ensure that the resident was free from physical abuse, and didn’t report the abuse for two months.
The facility was called SunBridge Care & Rehabilitation prior to Dec. 10, 2004. In January of 2004, a sting operation by the state attorney general resulted in the arrest of 12 SunBridge employees, who were accused of elder abuse of a resident.