Report blames Fairview Developmental Center for 6 deaths

A trove of newly released state records has revealed that the Fairview Developmental Center is to blame in the deaths of six residents between 2002 and 2011.

In total, Fairview reported eight deaths in that period, the most of all developmental centers throughout California, according to the California Department of Public Health records.

The state-run, 111-acre center in Costa Mesa provides 24-hour care to patients suffering from various developmental disabilities. It paid $232,500 in fines for all eight fatal incidents, the largest of which was $80,000 in 2002 after faulty bed equipment was deemed a contributing factor in a woman’s death.

Fairview was also fined $22,500 after a 25-year-old man, who suffered from seizures and a developmental disability, died in 2007 after drowning in a bathtub.

In 2003, an aggressive 16-year-old with bipolar disorder who had been put in restraints spit twice at a staff member, who then choked him to the point that he couldn’t breathe afterward for 10 seconds. The patient was subjected to abuse and “unnecessary physical and emotional anguish,” authorities concluded.

Other citations against Fairview describe various examples of staff negligence, including a failure to protect residents from attacking one another, not preventing a resident from swallowing inedible objects despite having a history of doing so, and inadequately implementing safety awareness training after a patient fell on a wet floor and broke his lower back.

The records were recently made public by the Center for Investigative Reporting, which successfully sued the state and forced authorities to provide the information without redactions. Fairview’s deaths were among 22 statewide that occurred within all of California’s developmental centers, some of which have since closed.

Thirteen of the deaths were blamed on abuse or neglect at the centers, the Center for Investigative Reporting said.

The state’s three largest centers are home to about 1,000 people. Fairview currently cares for 281 of them, though it has a capacity to have about 2,500.

In a statement, California Department of Developmental Services spokeswoman Nancy Lungren said Fairview “is committed to the health and safety of its residents and is continuously improving conditions in areas found to be deficient in the citations.”

The department takes all public health surveys and findings seriously, she added, and has utilized a task force to address “significant and difficult issues.”

“When deficiencies are identified,” Lungren said, “plans of correction are implemented and submitted to [public health officials] for approval. Many of the incidents reported are over a decade old and the deficiencies addressed and resolved ... the [developmental centers] continue to work on system improvements through continuing improvement plans, as well as any necessary culture change to make advancements in all aspects of care and services to the residents.”

Leslie Morrison, an investigator with Disability Rights California, called the reports from Fairview and the other developmental centers “very, very troubling.”

“We’re very disheartened about these incidents,” she said, adding that some of them are being investigated by her agency.

Fairview, she said, does have some residents who are challenging for staff because of their behavioral issues, “but they certainly shouldn’t have been subjected to the abuse, neglect and lack of supervision that contributed to the incidents described in these reports.”

News of fines and wrongdoing at Fairview comes weeks after two proposed bills in Sacramento that aim close it and another near Napa.

Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Murrieta) and Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) have introduced separate bills with similar provisions to close the centers and transfer their patients to regional facilities for a fraction of the cost.

In January 2014, authorities said Fairview was at risk of losing funding after an investigation the year before found various patient care problems, identified as “immediate jeopardy situations.” Within a month, however, Fairview officials agreed to an improvement plan that allowed the facility to continue receiving its Medicaid funding.