Oakwood cited for
serious violation; 23rd time in 21 months
By John Stamper
HERALD-LEADER
FRANKFORT BUREAU
September 20, 2006
(NOTE: The facility
mentioned in this article is for adults, but Oakwood
also provides treatment for youth -
click here
- Their site states they include offenders
with chronic mental illness and substance abuse,
adult and adolescent sex offenders, sexually
violent predators, offenders with mental
retardation, and individuals with problem behaviors.
We provide individualized treatment and teach
clients responsible self-management in secure and
non-secure settings. )
FRANKFORT
- A resident at the state's largest home
for the mentally retarded suffered injuries during a
scuffle with two staffers that eventually required
the surgical removal of his left testicle, according
to a Type A citation the state issued today to the
Communities at Oakwood.
The Type A
citation, the most serious kind, is the 23rd Oakwood
has received in 21 months.
State officials
told a panel of lawmakers today that more citations
will likely follow in coming months, even after the
Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation
Board takes over operation of the Somerset facility
on Nov. 1.
"There are
incidents that are currently being investigated that
may end up in the newspaper," Mark Birdwhistell,
secretary for the Cabinet for Health and Family
Services, warned members of the Interim Joint
Committee on Health and Welfare.
Birdwhistell said
the state will submit on Friday its response to an
August notice from federal regulators that Oakwood
will lose its federal funding unless it can show
that residents are safe. At stake is more than $43
million, about two-thirds of Oakwood's annual
budget, from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
"We're not out of
the woods yet," Birdwhistell said.
The latest citation
involves an unnamed resident with a history of
"self-injurious behavior," according to the citation
issued by the cabinet's Office of Inspector General.
According to staff
interviews, the resident was attempting to injure
himself while in the bathroom at about 5:30 a.m.
July 4. After running out of the bathroom and into
his bedroom, the resident fell down and grabbed a
staff member's leg. "My knee went between his legs
on the mattress," the staffer told investigators.
The staff member
noticed swelling of the resident's scrotum at about
6 a.m. "I realized then that I may have caused the
injury," the staffer said.
After being taken
to the hospital, the resident was diagnosed with a
"fractured" left testicle. He was later transferred
to a Lexington hospital, where his left testicle was
removed.
Although Oakwood
initiated an investigation into the incident, the
facility broke its own regulations by allowing two
staffers involved in the incident to continue caring
for the injured resident and others.
The citation says
the staff members did not know that they were
supposed to attempt to block the client's blows by
putting him in a chair with armrests. They also did
not notify the appropriate staff about the
resident's behavior.
The two staffers
were terminated Aug. 29 and Aug. 31, said Gwenda
Bond, a spokeswoman for the cabinet. Liberty
Healthcare, the Pennsylvania company hired last year
to manage Oakwood, will be fined $10,000 for the
citation, Bond said. This is the fourth time that
Liberty has been fined.
Its $18.1 million,
12-month contract to run Oakwood expires at the end
of October.
Bluegrass has
signed a memorandum of agreement to manage the
facility and oversee more than 1,000 Oakwood
employees for nine months at a cost of $56.75
million.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/15566418.htm
