Arizona facility where incapacitated woman gave birth faces more trouble

PHOENIX — The state of Arizona is revoking the license of a care facility where an incapacitated woman was raped and gave birth last year after another patient was found to have maggots.

The Arizona Department of Health Services said late Friday that revoking the license of Hacienda Healthcare will give the state more oversight of the facility but will not force it to close.

The agency says the license was revoked “based on findings from a recent survey and an extremely disturbing incident involving inadequate patient care.”

Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix.Ross D. Franklin / AP

The health department had confirmed Friday that it would investigate the facility after maggots were discovered earlier this week near a surgical incision beneath a patient’s gauze bandage.

A Hacienda spokesman had said the facility is the same location where an incapacitated woman was raped and gave birth in 2018. A nurse who worked at the facility has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Hacienda’s board of directors initially proposed closing the unit where the rape victim lived, saying it was no longer financially sustainable. The state stepped in to regulate the facility to avoid 37 residents getting displaced.

Arizona lawmakers just months ago required the facility to be licensed. The legislature eliminated a two-decade-old law exempting Hacienda form state licensure requirements.

Hacienda is the first intermediate care facility in Arizona to be licensed since the 1990s, when lawmakers approved the exemption.

source: nbcnews.com