Nursing homes have a legal obligation to provide close supervision of their residents at all time. This extends to safeguarding their physical safety as well as monitoring and reporting upon any changes in their physical condition. Nursing homes that fail to uphold these duties may be sued for financial compensation if it harms your loved one. Call the Nursing Home Law Center attorneys to learn more about filing a lawsuit against the nursing home where your loved one was injured.
This nursing home is an 87 bed for-profit facility that offers short and long-stay care to residents of the San Francisco Bay area. The Medicare/Medicaid approved facility is located at:
525 Auto Center Dr,
Watsonville, CA 95076
(831) 724-7505
As the overseer of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has jurisdiction over all nursing homes that participate in the program. Their inspections are conducted annually and are aimed at ensuring that the myriad of regulations that govern nursing homes are followed. The ultimate goal is ensuring that nursing homes are able to remain in these programs and can continue to receive reimbursements for resident care. CMS has the ability to suspend or remove a nursing home from the Medicare program. In addition, the California Department of Public Health also has concurrent jurisdiction over the nursing home and can impose fines and sanctions of its own.
Medicare publishes the results of its annual inspections of nursing homes nationwide. Families are able to access the publicly-released information in order to gauge the quality of care at the nursing home. Facilities that receive a one-star rating have the lowest quality of care. The number and types of violations that are detected will lead to a lower rating. Watsonville Nursing Center has received three fines from the State of California in the past several years. These have resulted either from complaints that were filed against the nursing home or violations that were detected on visits to the facility. One fine resulted from an incident where a resident told an LVN that they were hit and yelled at by another staff member. The LVN had the obligation to immediately report the allegation, but went home for the day instead. There was no record or documentation that the resident informed that particular LVN of any type of alleged abuse. This meant that the facility did not report the abuse allegation to the state within the required 24 hour timeframe. The alleged abuser should have immediately removed from duty while there was an investigation, but no such step was taken.
The nursing home also received two fines from California in 2018. One resulted from an incident where a resident was allowed to smoke be themselves outside unsupervised. The resident was not wearing any type of apron to protect themselves. When they came back in the building, they were observed with three cigarettes burns on their shorts. The other fine resulted from an infestation of flying insects near where food was stored. There have been other incidents regarding hazards and lack of supervision that resulted in citations but not fines. For example, in 2017, one resident eloped from the facility and was found off nursing homes grounds across the street. The resident had a history of wandering and had gotten as far as nearly a mile from the facility in the past. There was a sitter assigned, but the sitter was not present when the resident left the facility.
Watsonville Nursing Center received a citation in July 2018 as a result of an investigation prompted by a complaint. One resident physically attacked another resident, causing a skin tear on their arm. The aggressor had a history of attacking other residents, and this was the third incident involving that particular resident. However, there was no plan of intervention with the aggressive resident after the two first two incidents, including one where they threw coffee at another resident. Nursing homes have obligations to take action to prevent residents from physically abusing each other.
While the 2018 inspection report did not contain an inordinate amount of health citations, there were numerous lapses in the quality of care at the facility. For example, staff failed to notify the physician of changes in two different residents’ condition when one resident had a change in urine color and the other resident was running a high fever. There were other issues with how the staff monitored and treated residents with health issues.
Nursing homes will go to great lengths to deny that they have done anything wrong and to convince you that they fulfilled their care obligations. What is necessary in any situation where your loved one is harmed is aggressive legal representation by an attorney who has experience in challenging nursing homes for their lapses in care. Contact us : the attorneys at the Nursing Home Law Center fit this description as they have been helping families receive the justice they deserve across California for many years. Call them today at (800) 926-7565 to schedule your free no-risk case consultation today and to find out whether you have a case to receive financial compensation from the nursing home that has failed your loved one.
Attorney Anthony Lanzone
Licensed in California
Chicago Nursing Home Injury Attorney Nursing Home Law Center LLC Home