A recent story from LAist is reporting how the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has consolidated nearly every one of its medical parole patients into Golden Legacy, a Sylmar nursing home with a very troubled history of bad care. Medical parole patients are incarcerated individuals who are moved from prison, often into nursing homes, because they are “medically incapacitated” and need assistance with activities of daily living that would qualify them for placement in a health care facility. For years, medical parole patients have lived in nursing homes throughout the state.

Recently, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has found that the conditions imposed on medical parole patients (such as physical restraints and limitations on privacy) are at odds with the rights of nursing home residents. All nursing home residents, including justice-involved residents, have the full array of federal resident rights to protect them. As a result of the CMS crackdown on rights violations, CDCR has sent its medical parole patients to Golden Legacy, which has been stripped of its federal certification due to a number of serious problems and a long history of regulatory noncompliance. The medical parole patients have been dumped into a potentially dangerous facility where the care is reportedly often poor and neglectful and residents are perceived to have fewer protective rights

Hopefully, CDCR, CMS, and the state Department of Public Health will find a way to restore the medical parole program so residents can be placed in better facilities while balancing residents’ rights with public safety concerns.