Administrators of Hollywood’s so-called celebrity nursing home didn’t violate state laws when they transferred more than 30 residents last year, California health officials said late last week, reversing an earlier decision.
State inspectors had recently charged administrators at the Motion Picture and Television Fund nursing home with failing to give a required 30-day notice of discharge to roughly 30 residents. The administrators appealed that decision, arguing that the notices were not necessary since the residents transferred on their own, voluntarily. Late last week, the California Department of Public Health relented and sided with the home’s administrators, according to the LA Times.
According to state health officials, the nursing home, though having announced plans to close in January of 2009, did not give residents an official closure date, and therefore the formal closure process had never been initiated, the Times reported. Two patient advocacy groups, the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform and Saving the Lives of Our Own, the latter of which was formed to defend the residents at the MPTF home, both registered strong opposing views to the state’s reversal.
