Healthcare facility CEO resigns after woman in vegetative state gives birth
Just a week after a woman in a vegetative state at a nursing facility gave birth, the CEO of the facility resigned.
Bill Timmons, CEO of Hacienda HealthCare, resigned on Monday, a decision that was unanimously accepted by Hacienda's board of directors. His resignation also comes amid new allegations of past abuses at the Phoenix nursing facility.
On Dec. 29, 2018, a 29-year-old woman gave birth to a healthy son, KPHO-TV reported, despite having been in a vegetative state for 14 years after a near-drowning accident.
According to KPHO-TV, Gary Orman, executive vice president of the board said the facility is cooperating with the police and "the investigating agencies at all levels in every way possible."
Orman continued: Hacienda "will accept nothing less than full accounting of this absolutely horrifying situation … we will do everything in our power to ensure the safety of every single one of our patients and our employees."
A woman who had worked in a management position at the facility for more than a decade told KPHO that a previous incident of abuse had gone unreported. She said that Timmons had insisted that the incident of abuse, which occurred in 1998 to a different patient, be covered up.
According to the former employee, female nurses were talking inappropriately about a male patient's genitalia while standing around his bed. The patient was nonverbal and when the incident was addressed in a meeting, KPHO reported that Timmons allegedly slammed his fist on the table and said no one was going to report it.
Copyright 2017 U.S. News & World Report
