Seniors Care Facility Drafts Plan to Satisfy State Agency : Inspections: Cited 29 times, the home fired an employee who reportedly gave out medication to the wrong residents.

In response to a rash of citations by a state licensing agency, the county’s largest board-and-care facility for the elderly has drafted a plan to address such problems as a dirty kitchen, poorly trained staff and several incidents of head lice, state officials said.

Channel Islands Gardens, a 210-bed facility in Oxnard, has sent a written outline of the plan to the state Community Care Licensing Division, which had been investigating the facility’s hiring and training procedures, officials said.

Since March 13, the state licensing agency has cited the facility 29 times for violations of health codes ranging from failure to clean bathrooms and kitchens to failing to clean up cat feces on the floor of a resident’s room.

The number of citations is substantially higher than at any of the 54 other board-and-care facilities in the county and has raised concern among state and county officials, who oversee long-term care facilities.

Ron Loux, a Community Care Licensing Division supervisor, said his agency will give the staff at Channel Islands 30 days to implement the plan.

If the problems continue after that, Loux said the state can begin to fine the facility up to $50 a day until the problems are addressed. If the problems continue despite the fines, Loux said he will schedule a meeting with the executive administrator of the facility to discuss the matter. He said the state could require that the facility hire more professionally trained staff.

The ultimate solution could be to revoke the facility’s license, he said.

“It remains to be seen what will happen,” he said. “But some of these problems are serious.”

Loux said the plan to address the problems includes an in-house training session to teach kitchen staff how to better prepare meals and keep the kitchen clean. The plan also calls for county health officials to train staff in how to administer treatment to residents with head lice, he said.

Channel Islands also has reprimanded some employees for failure to clean up after residents and has fired an employee who reportedly gave out medication to the wrong residents, Loux said.

Loa Baptie, an administrator at the facility, played down the number of citations, describing them as “picayune” and “cosmetic.” She said the plan submitted to the state demonstrates that Channel Islands is trying to address each complaint raised by the state licensing agency.

“If you are always inspected, you are never perfect,” she said, adding that the kitchen staff received a training session last week. Channel Islands will soon hold staff training sessions on proper treatment for head lice, she said.

In an interview earlier this month, one resident of Channel Islands said staff members are so poorly trained that she was recently given someone else’s medication.

Amparo Rivera of Ventura said she became concerned about the care offered at the facility after she found head lice on her 84-year-old mother, who entered Channel Islands in May.

Most of the health violations that led to citations were brought to the attention of the state licensing agency by the Ventura County Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, which regularly visits such facilities.

Shirley Radding, the director of the ombudsman program, said she is somewhat pleased to hear that Channel Islands has drafted a plan of action.

However, she said she remains skeptical because Channel Islands has repeatedly ignored or delayed addressing the problems identified by her office.

“I’m just going to be guarded about it,” she said. “I think we just have to wait and see.”

One of the complaints raised by the ombudsman program is that all residents are usually fed the same meals, even if they are diabetic or require a low-salt diet.

However, Baptie said her facility is not a nursing home and her staff doesn’t have the right to tell residents how to take care of themselves or what to eat.

“If the guy says ‘Give me a Reuben sandwich,’ we give him the Reuben sandwich,” she said.