Pleasant Care On Auction Block

After years of fines, penalties and accusations of elder abuse, La Cañada-based Pleasant Care Corp., the state's second largest nursing home corporation, is set to auction all 30 of its California facilities.

Pleasant Care, which filed for bankruptcy in March of this year, has had many years of trouble. There have been private lawsuits as well as fines and violations of codes and conduct brought against the corporation by the state attorney general's office. Pleasant Care and CEO Emmanuel I. Bernabe owns or has interest in more than 30 nursing homes throughout California. This month the California Department of Health Services levied an $80,000 fine against a Pleasant Care facility in Norwalk after an investigation found that poor healthcare resulted in the death of a 54-year-old resident in August 2005.

Despite several attempts, neither Bernabe nor any other representative of Pleasant Care Corp. could be reached for comment.

Last year, Pleasant Care agreed to pay $1.35 million to the state to settle civil allegations it provide negligent care in a number of its facilities. Pleasant Care pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of elder abuse. The initial lawsuit sited numerous allegations, not only elder abuse, but also criminally negligent care, including more than 160 citations issued by CDHS in the past five years.

According to that 2006 judgment, Pleasant Care was required to improve quality care issues, mandatory staff training and quality of care remedies. But according to Pat McGinnis, executive director of California Advocates For Nursing Home Reform, Pleasant Care did not appear to comply with those regulations.

"Lawsuit after lawsuit, settlement after settlement [nothing changed]," McGinnis said. "I don't think you could provide any worse care than Bernabe did."

McGinnis said she's concerned about the residents who are now living in the facilities. She said that for whoever buys Pleasant Care the foundation of neglect at nursing homes will still be a factor until licensing and certification problems are resolved by the state.

"This [problem with Pleasant Care] has been going on for ten years," she said.

The facilities are to be kept open during the auction period, and future purchases.