Click to hear the January 26 Steele Report with State Senator Victoria Steele and Blog for Arizona journalist and Democratic Precinct Committeeman Larry Bodine.
Now is the time to shut down Hacienda Health Care in Phoenix, where a 29-year old mentally disabled women was raped by her caretaker nurse, who has been arrested. Astonishingly, the staff did not know the woman was pregnant. Hacienda’s CEO and the doctor responsible for the woman have resigned. Meanwhile, Hacienda — which gets $20 million in state funds — remains open. The absentee Board of Directors should be held personally financially liable.
How do we know she is the only victim?
CEO Bill Timmons has faced multiple sexual harassment complaints since 2006, but the Board of Directors slapped his wrist and later gave him a $71,000 raise.
Hacienda is a non-profit organization that is a state contractor that gets $20 million in taxpayer money. It was under a state criminal fraud investigation into $4.2 million in bogus expenses. Hacienda stonewalled the government and nothing happened and no one was charged.
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Sounds like the mental health system in Southern Arizona, where protecting profits and sub recipients’ executives, for more synergistic efficiencies, are always more important than client services. I am sure the legislative majority just wishes the mentally ill would just disappear so they would not have to spend any money on them.
The system is broken in Maricopa County and even the entire red state as a whole. Guardianship conservatorship is full of shady dealings. Reporting to state agencies is a hollow venture where nursing facilities ceos owners administrators even probate court and legal help can be connected in some weird manner. How your character is perceived becomes fact despite the visual reality to staff by my visits phone calls showed a long standing loving relationship to mom. It’s hard to see suffering without kind support.
The cost to challenge this crazy system is a bankruptcy inducing adventure with no usual good outcomes. improper things go on regularly in these environments causing unnecessary distress to patients but are explained away as “unsubstantiated” to authorities.
Employees stay silent because they fear loosing their jobs and families get retaliated against for filing complaints when there’s no good communication. Then the smear campaign begins that you are a trouble maker for calling out what you see. I’ve watched my elderly loved one suffer while I could do nothing. I’m sure there’s more to the story of hacienda and the individual, family.
Baby boomers will be faced with a bitter reality in long term care. I’m so sad to have fought and lost and knowing others will go through similar pain.
Sounds like the mental health system in Southern Arizona, where protecting profits and sub recipients’ executives, for more synergistic efficiencies, are always more important than client services. I am sure the legislative majority just wishes the mentally ill would just disappear so they would not have to spend any money on them.