Parents of patients at the Phoenix-based health care facility, where a female patient in a vegetative state for more than a decade, reportedly gave birth to a son last month, say they are shocked and seeking answers.
“Everybody was up in shock,” Karina Cesena, whose 22-year-old daughter, Jazzmyne, is a patient at the Hacienda Healthcare facility, toldCBS News. “Trust has been broken and severed completely.”
“A lot of people are mad – my family included,” Gary Londer told the outlet.
“My heart hurts, my chest hurts. I haven’t been able to sleep well at night because of what occurred here,” a mother, Angela Gomez, told CBS.
A patient is considered in a vegetative state when he or she is awake but not showing signs of awareness, according to theMayo Clinic.
Google Maps
In a statement to PEOPLE on Friday, Hacienda HealthCare spokesman David Leibowitz said the organization, which runs the facility, was cooperating with law enforcement, but declined to divulge the exact nature of the underlying incident.
“We have recently become aware of a deeply disturbing incident involving the health and safety of a Hacienda resident,” Leibowitz said. “While federal and state privacy laws prohibit us from publicly discussing a patient’s health or case, Hacienda has and will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement and all the relevant regulatory agencies regarding this matter.”
TheNew York TimesandNBC Newsreported that the Phoenix Police Department had opened an investigation into allegations involving the facility but the agency would not discuss the details of the case or how long they had been looking into it.
The Phoenix Police Department did not return PEOPLE’s calls for comment.
The Arizona Department of Health Services (DHS), which licenses the facility, said they were aware of the alleged incident and were “actively working with local law enforcement in their criminal investigation.”
In the statement, DHS spokesperson Melissa Blasius-Nuanez said the agency immediately initiated an onsite complaint investigation to “ensure the health and safety of the patients and ensure the facility is in compliance with all state laws and regulations.”
Hacienda HealthCare spokesman Leibowitz said the organization “stands fully committed to getting to the truth of what, for us, represents an unprecedented matter.”
The organization, he said, is conducting a “comprehensive internal review of our processes, protocols, and people to ensure that every single Hacienda resident is as safe and well cared for as possible. Anything less than that is unacceptable to our team, our company’s leaders and the communities we serve.”
source: people.com
