Glisan Care Center, a Southeast Portland nursing home, is facing a $4 million lawsuit following the death of a resident last year.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges that Charlene Patton suffered “incredible abuse and neglect at Glisan Care Center,” which ultimately led to her death from septic shock. There is. She developed seven pressure sores during her 1-year stay in the facility.
“[The facility]rarely, if ever, washed Ms. Patton's face, brushed her teeth, or changed her pillowcase, and dark brown and yellow stains appeared on her skin.” the complaint alleges. “She was also left wearing soiled underwear and often left in her own feces and urine for hours before being attended to.”
Patton was hospitalized a year ago for rehabilitation after suffering a fractured femoral neck, but passed away on March 12, 2023. During her stay, the understaffed facility failed to provide Patton with “wound care” or a “timely assessment” of her condition, according to the complaint. “She was a fighter and full of energy, but at the hospital she was unable to speak or identify her family,” it read.
State inspection records lend some credence to the lawsuit's claims. In the month following Patton's death, state inspectors found the facility failed to respond to call lights in a timely manner and failed to “comprehensively assess pressure ulcers upon admission and re-entry to the facility” in two cases. I mentioned that.
Inspectors ultimately declared the facility's residents to be in “imminent danger” after learning of another resident's near-death fall two months earlier. Staff failed to administer prescribed anticonvulsants.
The facility was fined nearly $100,000 by federal regulators soon after, and the state placed unspecified restrictions on its license, which have now been lifted.
“Not all facilities have that kind of chronic neglect,” said Kristen McCall, the family's attorney. “We want to prevent something like this from happening to anyone else,” said Patton's daughter Tasha.
Representatives for Glisan Care Center, whose business was recently sold to a publicly traded holding company in Utah, did not respond to requests for comment.
