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CEO resigns over case of woman in vegetative state who gave birth

CEO resigns over case of woman in vegetative state who gave birth
CEO resigns over case of woman in vegetative state who gave birth
The company, Hacienda HealthCare, said the resignation of the executive, Bill Timmons, was unanimously accepted by its board of directors.
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The chief executive of the corporation that runs a private nursing home in Arizona where a woman in a vegetative state was sexually assaulted and later gave birth to a child resigned Monday, the company said in a statement.

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The company, Hacienda HealthCare, said the resignation of the executive, Bill Timmons, was unanimously accepted by its board of directors. David Leibowitz, a company spokesman, said Timmons had been chief executive for 28 years. Efforts to reach Timmons on Monday night were unsuccessful.

Gary Orman, executive vice president of the company’s board, said it would “accept nothing less than a full accounting of this absolutely horrifying situation, an unprecedented case that has devastated everyone involved, from the victim and her family to Hacienda staff at every level of our organization.”

Hacienda HealthCare has been under intense scrutiny since the Phoenix Police Department said last week that it had opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the conception of the child, who was born last month. The woman has not been publicly identified.

A spokeswoman at the Arizona Department of Health Services said it was also aware of the allegations and would conduct an inspection of the Hacienda Nursing Facility. Records posted to the Medicare website indicate that the care center received a “below average” rating from health inspectors in 2017. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rated its quality of resident care as “much below average.”

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“I want to assure our patients, their loved ones, our community partners, the agencies we do business with, Gov. Ducey and the residents of Arizona, we will continue to cooperate with Phoenix police and the investigating agencies at all levels in every way possible,” Orman said in the statement. “And we will do everything in our power to ensure the safety of every single one of our patients and our employees.”

The nursing home, which is about 7 miles south of downtown Phoenix, specializes in the care of people with intellectual disabilities and has at least 74 patient beds, according to federal records. State records indicate that some patients have lived there for decades.

This is not the first time that investigators have expressed concern about the facility.

In 2013, the Arizona Department of Health Services found that a male employee mistreated some patients by making sexually explicit remarks about them. A state report issued at the time did not allege physical abuse at the center, and its operators said the employee in question had been fired. It said employees would be given new training on how to report the suspected abuse of patients.

In 2017, state investigators cited the facility for providing inadequate privacy to patients while they were naked or being showered. A report issued at the time reminded the center that it had an obligation to its residents.

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“Federal and state laws guarantee certain basic rights to all residents of this facility and they include the right to a dignified existence and to be treated with dignity,” it said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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