Dementia wheelchair-bound resident escapes nursing home

By Clara Benitez

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    CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (KRIS) — On December 18th, the Corpus Christi Police Department responded to a welfare call regarding an elderly man in a wheelchair stuck on some grass on the 3300 block of Houston Street right after midnight.

Officers took the elderly man to Doctors Regional Hospital for further evaluation, learning the man was a dementia patient at Pelican Pointe Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center.

KRIS 6 Investigates learned the man, had just become a resident at the facility, and staff at the nursing home were not aware of his disappearance until contacted by authorities.

It is unknown, how long he was missing.

According to the Texas Health and Human Services, when an incident like this happens in a nursing home – it needs to be reported immediately.

A former employee of the nursing home, which KRIS6 has decided not to identify due to retaliation, says after the administrator found out about the patient leaving the facility – he wanted to change the scenario and say the man left against medical advice.

Question: “In your 38 years, or just in your time have you ever seen the administrators want to change the story or send a patient to another facility so they wouldn’t be interviewed by the state?”

“No,” the former employee responded.

Pelican Pointe Nursing Home, registered as San Rafael Nursing Home, received three immediate jeopardy citations in 2023. Immediate jeopardy is the highest level of non-compliance a nursing home can receive.

Their most recent incident is considered an elopement, which is another immediate jeopardy.

When nursing homes receive these citations, they are required to fix all the violations. If it is not fixed, the state could take enforcement against the provider including termination of the Medicaid agreement.

“The facility must ensure the noncompliance is corrected before the termination date. Providers have 6 months to come into compliance or risk termination of the provider agreement. Plan of Corrections must be submitted within 10 days of receipt of the 2567 form. In the plan, the facility provides the date by which they believe they will have the noncompliance corrected, which is usually between 30-45 days or less.“

“They resigned basically because of the moral and ethical issues being asked to do something – change documentation or the actual happenings to basically say something different that did not occur,” the former employee said.

KRIS 6 investigates reached out to Pelican Pointe regarding the most recent elopement:

“Pelican Pointe serves its residents and community. We respect residents’ time and freedom to live fulfilling lives. Pelican Pointe strongly disagrees with the recent citation and will appeal it. The recent sharp increase in citations for nursing homes interrupts resident care, and leads to facility closures resulting in loss of jobs and forced relocation of innocent residents as seen from Focused Care at Corpus Christi this year.”

KRIS 6, reached out to Baker and Baker Elder Law – which is the legal guardian for the elderly man in a wheelchair and they did not respond to an update on their client.

According to the former employee, the administrator sent the man to another facility in San Antonio to prevent him from getting interviewed by the state.

On top of this incident and the three immediate jeopardy citations, there are still conditions that are not sanitary or livable according to the former employee.

“They have staff that does not have the credentials to be working there – and not certified as required by the state the administrator starts to cover up for the filthiness in that kitchen. Rodents in the kitchen, raw food being served. Inappropriate diets being served, the texture of the food not being appropriate for the patient’s diet which can cause aspiration on death and he consistently keeps covering for these individuals in charge of the kitchen and they just got cited,” the former employee stated.

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