by Bryant Furlow
Four New Mexico caregivers have been criminally charged for abusing
elderly residents at assisted living, group home and home care
facilities in Rio Rancho, Las Vegas and Santa Fe, following
investigations by the state’s Department of Justice (NMDOJ).
In
three of the cases, the alleged assaults were caught on video. Such
dramatic evidence of alleged eldercare abuse is rare, one national
expert told New Mexico In Depth on Wednesday, adding that abuse often
goes unreported and unaddressed, in part because there are gaps in
oversight of such facilities.
The four defendants are Salomon
Sanchez, 20, a worker at Community Options, Inc.’s facility in Santa Fe;
Lee Carrizales, 64, an employee at Pacifica Senior Living in Santa Fe;
Edwards D. Bonilla-Aguinada, 34, of MorningStar of Rio Rancho Assisted
Living; and Linda Romero, 52, a paid home caregiver who allegedly
repeatedly struck a developmentally disabled patient in front of
witnesses, according to court filings.
Each of the four is charged with abuse of a resident,
a petty misdemeanor punishable with up to six months in jail. Two of
the facilities told New Mexico In Depth on Wednesday the charged
employees had been fired.
“These charges send a clear message
that abuse of vulnerable New Mexicans will not be tolerated,” Attorney
General Raúl Torrez said Tuesday in a press release.
The NMDOJ
disclosed videos of two of the incidents, involving Sanchez and
Carrizales, but did not publicly release video of Bonilla-Aguinada’s
alleged assault of an 89-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s, out of
sensitivity for the victim, who had soiled herself, according to
spokeswoman Lauren Rodriguez. The incident with Romero was not
recorded.
On May 11, 2024, two videos —
one taken shortly after the other at Community Options, Inc.’s Camino
Esquina group home for people with developmental disabilities, in Santa
Fe — show a person identified as Sanchez slapping, grabbing and shoving a
wheelchair-bound resident. At one point he grabbed the resident from
behind, forcing their head down.
“No one’s taking you to the bathroom, fool – no one,” he can be heard saying in the video. “Play with your toys. No bathroom!”
In
a May 5, 2024 video taken at MorningStar of Rio Rancho Assisted Living,
which was not released by NMDOJ, a person identified as
Bonilla-Aguinada is seen aggressively forcing an 89-year-old resident
with Alzheimer’s to disrobe after soiling herself, according to a NMDOJ
court filing: The defendant pushed the victim onto the bed, snapping her
head backwards, then aggressively removed her clothes, forcing the
victim off the bed and onto the floor.
Pacifica’s caregiver, Lee Carrizales, is charged with verbally assaulting two different residents on January 4, 2024. A video of
the first incident shows a person identified as Lee yelling in the face
of one resident who was sitting in a wheelchair at Pacifica’s Memory
Care Unit. “Stop your (expletive) crying already, stop it!,” Lee can be
heard yelling. “You’re on your own now, I’m not dealing with you
anymore!” A second video shows
Lee yelling and cursing at another resident in the Memory Care Unit,
later that day. The first victim could not recall the incident and
“seemed confused,” according to NMDOJ court filings; the second victim
told an investigator she was scared of Lee.
“[S]omeone who is not
going to be able to remember or is not going to be able to communicate
well, is a prime target,” Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long
Term Care Community Coalition (LTCCC), a New York-based patient
advocacy group, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Community Options and Pacifica have been sued by residents and their families, court records indicate. In an April 9, 2024 news story in the Santa Fe New Mexican,
family members of another Pacifica resident described living conditions
at the facility as substandard, alleging, the paper wrote, “constant
staff turnover and a lack of medical care.”
The publicly released videos are “horrific,” Mollot said.
Mollot
has testified before Congress on elder care, including testimony given
before the Senate Special Committee on Aging in January. The
committee’s hearings focused
on quality of care, patient safety, and the assisted living industry’s
lack of accountability or federal regulatory oversight.
“It’s a nightmare to be in a situation like that,” Mollot said.
“Living at these facilities, you are vulnerable and count on people that
are paid and that are trained.”
The
situation is worse at assisted living facilities than more regulated
skilled nursing homes, Mollot noted. The federal government requires
regular inspections of nursing homes. But no such requirements for
assisted living centers exist, meaning oversight falls to states.
New Mexico has struggled to fill that gap. A New Mexico In Depth review of
complaint investigations, inspection reports, and court filings for 215
facilities with nearly 6,000 beds found that many assisted living
centers across the state have fallen short of the mark on resident
safety, and instances of neglect and delayed medical attention are
prevalent.
An agency spokesman told New Mexico In Depth in March
the Division of Health Improvement is tasked with inspections when a new
facility applies for a license or when ownership changes hands, or to
investigate complaints. The division also requires facilities to report
critical incidents, which then spur investigations.
But unlike their approach with skilled nursing homes, state inspectors do not conduct regularly scheduled onsite compliance inspections of assisted living centers.
Administrators
at Pacifica Senior Living in Santa Fe and defendant Romero, the paid
caregiver accused of striking a developmentally disabled patient
repeatedly in front of witnesses, could not be reached for comment.
A
spokesperson for MorningStar said in an email that immediately after
learning of the assault, the facility investigated, and fired
Bonilla-Aguinada the following day.
“When in July the [state] Department of Justice called our executive
director as part of its continuing investigation, we cooperated fully,”
the spokesperson said. “There is no higher priority at MorningStar than
that of resident safety and quality of compassionate care.”
Noemi
Rivera, New Mexico state director for Community Options, responded to an
email from New Mexico In Depth, writing that the company is “committed
to providing safe and supportive housing for people with disabilities
and has a zero-tolerance policy for abuse or mistreatment of any kind.”
“Upon
learning of the incident, the employee was immediately suspended and
subsequently terminated,” Rivera’s email stated. “We are fully
cooperating with authorities to ensure that justice is served.”
But
changing systemic problems at eldercare facilities can require more
than firing an abusive caregiver, Mollot emphasized. “You have to go up
the chain of command because that’s what is going to make a difference,”
he explained. “Too often, we see something horrific and they get rid of
an employee, but that doesn’t solve the problem by itself. What helps
address the problem is when you are actually going after the operator
[administrator]. They have ultimate responsibility.”
For now, the
NMDOJ is focusing on prosecuting the defendants for their behavior, not
pursuing additional investigations into their employers, according to
Medicaid Fraud and Elder Abuse Division Director Joseph Martinez, in a
phone call Wednesday.
It’s also crucial that the state conduct unscheduled on-site inspections at eldercare facilities, Mollot said.
“There’s nothing more important,” he told New Mexico In Depth. “It’s
critical that you have inspectors coming in, in a way that it’s not
predictable for the provider, because you want to see what is going on
there. You don’t want it to be sugar coated or problems including abuse
or neglect being covered up — and we know those happen.”
The NMDOJ
separately charged a fifth caregiver of abuse earlier this year,
Rodriguez said. She did not have the details before New Mexico In Depth
published this story.
Full Article & Source:
Abuse charges against four eldercare workers underscore gaps in state oversight
