Napa care facility sued for elder abuse after nurse steals prescriptions – Napa Valley Register

“Instead of providing the required care to address the very conditions for which Joann was admitted to Golden LivingCenter—Napa, the facility neglected her conditions, directly leading to her injuries,” said her attorney, Stephen Garcia of Garcia, Artigliere & Medby, a national elder abuse law firm with California offices in Long Beach.

Travella, who has a complex medical history, came to Golden LivingCenter in April to receive continued antibiotic treatment for a urinary tract infection, according to the suit.

Instead of providing the therapy, the facility failed to evaluate Travella’s condition in a timely manner and failed to follow her doctor’s orders. As a result, Travella developed a preventable serious infection, the suit alleges.

Michelle Metzger, director of communications with Golden LivingCenters, said that the company does not comment on pending litigation.

After her stay with Golden LivingCenter, Travella’s daughter was informed via voicemail that a male nurse had been arrested and authorities found some of her mother’s prescriptions in his possession in his vehicle, the law firm said.

She also received a letter from the center’s corporate office stating that Travella’s private information had been removed from the facility by the male nurse, so she would need to contact credit bureaus, the law firm said.

The nurse, 25-year-old Ronald Mesia Moralde of Vallejo, was caught with medication taken from Golden LivingCenter when he was pulled over by a California Highway Patrol Officer for speeding on April 26.

When Moralde went to get his registration and insurance paperwork from the glove compartment, the officer spied several clear, labeled bags, each containing a single pill. When the officer asked what he was doing with the pills, Moralde admitted that the pills were from work, according to the probation officer’s report.

Ten more bags containing narcotics were found scattered on the backseat of the vehicle, each one with a different person’s name on it. He was arrested, and the officer found 70 more bags of medication in a backpack that was in the vehicle, the CHP reported.

A search of Moralde’s residence found prescription containers in boxes, shopping bags and a backpack.

The nurse said he had the medications due to laziness – that the medications were ones that patients had refused to take, which he held in his pockets and then left them in his car, according to the probation report. He had returned pills in the past, but most were stored in his car because he was afraid that returning them, especially all at once, would be “really incriminating,” according to the report.

Moralde said that he wasn’t addicted to the pills, that he never consumed any of them nor did he try to sell them.

When the probation officer asked him how he would feel if he was elderly, suffering from dementia, in pain and being denied medication by a caretaker, “he began to cry,” the report said.

One victim complained that Moralde gave her her medication only when she requested it, but it would usually take hours for him to comply. The victim believed that someone was stealing her medication, the report said.

Another victim stated that she never refused to take her medications, but had to ask Moralde for them eight or nine times before he would administer them.

The nurse said he was often working double shifts up to 16 hours a day, sometimes eight to 10 days in a row, according to the probation report.

Moralde pleaded no contest to first degree burglary on Aug. 18. Drug charges and misdemeanor crimes against an elder adult were dropped.

He was sentenced to one year in jail and three years of probation on Sept. 22 in Napa County Superior Court. He is scheduled to be remanded into custody on Oct. 21.

The suit alleges that the facility knew they were understaffed and employees were insufficiently trained, which led to the inevitable withholding of medical and custodial services to residents.

The lawsuit says that the management of Golden LivingCenter did this on purpose in order to make money. “This scheme has resulted in a lucrative business model,” it said.

The 120-bed facility was fined $18,720 on March 23, according to Medicare.gov Nursing Home Compare, the official U.S. government site for Medicare. The facility, which is under the legal business name of Beverly Health and Rehabilitation Services, Inc., was given one out of five stars and an overall rating score of “much below average” based on health inspection, staffing and quality measures.

During a health inspection completed March 23, inspectors found that three out of 22 sampled residents were not cared for in a respectful manner or in an environment that maintained and enhanced their dignity.

According to the report, one resident was forced to repeatedly pee in her adult diaper because the certified nursing assistant either didn’t respond to her call light in a timely manner or didn’t return after saying they would.

“Often the CNA would state they would be right back, but never returned, especially on the night shift,” the report reads. The resident wouldn’t even bother trying to call again because she knew it wouldn’t do any good, according to the report.

“I do not like going in my diaper,” she said. “I feel ignored.”

Certain rooms and bathrooms had holes in the walls and places where plaster had fallen off. Some bathrooms and shower facilities were dirty and did not seem to be cleaned between uses as was the policy, according to the health inspection report.

In one instance, “an unidentified substance was on the shower bench and inside the toilet bowel. The unidentified substance had the potential to spread an infection to a resident that had contact with it.”

The report also says that the facility failed to ensure sufficient nursing staff to provide resident care.