Three Arrested In Nursing Home Deaths
Posted by
Chrissie ColeFebruary 20, 2009 10:26 AM
Three former nursing home managers have been arrested in the deaths of three residents who allegedly were given needless doses of medication including Zyprexa, Risperdal and others.
The state attorney general’s office launched an investigation after receiving a criminal complaint that 20 or more residents at a nursing home run by the Kern Valley Healthcare District were drugged for “staff convenience.” Many of them suffered side effects that included extreme weight loss, slurred speech, tremors and in some cases psychosis, according to the complaint.
Former medical director, Dr. Hoshang M. Pormir, former nursing director Gwen D. Hughes and former chief pharmacist Debbi C. Hayes are scheduled for arraignment this morning and have been jailed since Wednesday.
“They maliciously violated the trust of their patients by holding them down and forcibly administering medications if they so much as questioned their care,” state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said.
All three are charged with elder abuse. Hayes and Hughes are accused of administering shots by force, without consent and also face charges of assault with a deadly weapon.
The complaint paints a bleak picture of a facility dominated by nursing director Hughes, 55, who is accused of seeking to drug all but the most docile residents. Medical director Pormir, 48, allegedly rubber-stamped Hughes' orders for medication, failed to examine patients and was "either willfully or naively ignorant" of his proper role, according to the complaint. Pharmacist Hayes, 51, told investigators that she went along because Hughes had wide experience in psychiatric hospitals, the complaint says.