Arizona Health Officials Want to Revoke License of Facility That Let Maggots Collect on Patient's Wound, Twice
The Arizona Department of Health Services has reportedly announced its intention to revoke the license of a troubled medical facility for intellectually disabled patients that has been at the center of numerous, recent health code violations, including a shocking report from January revealing that an incapacitated woman was impregnated and had given birth while in the facility's care.
Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix was most recently subject to another disturbing report alleging that several maggots were found near a surgical incision on a male patient.
The Arizona Republic received an e-mail from state health officials Friday evening announcing that the state will seek to revoke Hacienda's operating license.
State healthcare inspectors found an abundance of violations at the facility during a survey conducted earlier this year, according to Newsweek's review of health department filings. In their report, the officials warned of deficiencies that "had the potential to impact all clients in the facility."
"The facility failed to implement policies and procedures related to allegations of abuse, neglect, mistreatment, and injuries of unknown origin," the report found. "As a result, the facility placed... clients at increased risk for further neglect."
In January, news site Arizona's Family uncovered a police investigation into a possible case of rape at the Phoenix facility after a woman in a vegetative state gave birth to a baby boy in late December.
"None of the staff were aware that she was pregnant until she was pretty much giving birth," one source told the site.
Later on, 36-year-old nurse Nathan Sutherland, who was caring for the victim, was arrested and charged with sexual assault.
In a subsequent inspection in April, state health officials reported that "there were no deficiencies cited."
A Discovery of Maggots
David Leibowitz, a spokesman for the facility, told the Republic that staff at Hacienda discovered a "small number" of maggots on a patient, festering under a gauze bandage that had been placed near the patient's surgical incision.
According to Leibowitz, Hacienda sent the patient to a nearby hospital where the wound was cleaned up before being returned to Hacienda.
After his return, hospital staff noticed there were still "a few more maggots," and so the patient was once more returned to an area hospital where he remained.
Leibowitz said that the incision in question was a stoma, a hole created on the body to reach directly into a hollow organ, typically to bypass other dysfunctional organs. They are commonly located at the trachea, colon, esophagus or stomach.
