Pasadena Skilled Nursing Facility Officials Under Investigation

According to a city spokesperson, officials working at a local long-term health care facility shuttered last Thursday “due to lack of patient care including response to COVID” could face charges from state and local authorities.

According to Pasadena Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian, a state investigation and a local police investigation are ongoing and both could result in charges.

About 30 ambulances lined up outside the Golden Cross Health Care facility on North Fair Oaks Avenue at 11 p.m. last Thursday to remove residents and relocate them to other nursing home facilities after the State Attorney General’s Office on Thursday ordered the mass evacuation and relocation of 63 elderly patients from the facility.

State inspectors have found issues at the facility dating back to at least 2012.

Last year, 17 issues were recorded at the facility, according to KTLA Channel 5. Issues were also discovered in 2017 and 2018.

In 2012, an advocacy group for the rights of nursing home residents released records claiming that Golden Cross failed to treat and prevent wounds to residents there. Several residents were suffering from dehydration.

According to the city’s virus dashboard, 104 people connected to the facility have contracted the virus – 72 residents and 32 staff members.

Eight people connected to the facility have died from illnesses related to the virus.

So far, 1,037 local residents have caught the virus and 84 people have died.

As of Thursday night, 72 of the city’s 84 coronavirus fatalities were linked to 19 long-term care facilities.

The city has been particularly hard hit among residents living in long term health care facilities.

“I have been on this from the beginning,” said Vice Mayor Tyron Hampton. “We need to make sure all of our residents are being treated with dignity and respect, and I will continue to hold our health department accountable.”

Vice Mayor Hampton and mayoral candidate Victor Gordo have been critical of the health department response to the Coronavirus inside the city’s long-term health care facilities. Gordo said seeing the ambulances in front of a local nursing home was “unacceptable and tragic.”

“We have to study, assess, and learn from this experience now,” Gordo said. “We can’t take the chance that we will be somehow unprepared to protect the health and safety of every resident in our city should we have a second wave.”

There are 19 skilled nursing facilities in Pasadena, with 886 beds per 100,000 residents, as compared to 383 facilities in Los Angeles County with 382 beds per 100,000 residents. There are 2.3 times more beds per 100,000 residents in Pasadena than LA County.

As in Pasadena, the Coronavirus has had tragic effects on the vulnerable populations of long-term care facilities nationwide. According to a New York Times database, at least 28,000 residents and workers have died from COVID-19 at nursing homes and other long-term facilities for older adults in the United States.

“It is imperative that each and every individual who lives in one of these facilities is treated with dignity and respect, and I want each of them to know that we care about their health and well-being,” Hampton said. “With that being said, I will continue to hold the public health department accountable because it is not a jurisdiction issue, it’s an accountability issue. I hope it’s clear to all of the skilled nursing facilities in Pasadena that I’m watching, and that the Pasadena Public Health Department is watching too.”

Derderian said that after the local investigation is complete, a referral could be made to the Pasadena City Attorney’s Office.

“Their office is among those who enforce/prosecute our local order, as indicated in the order, but our prosecution consideration is based on referral by those who have investigated. Here, also, the State will play the major role in investigating and prosecuting Golden Cross.”