In a tragic end after 15 years of seeing her disabled daughter being bounced from one nursing home to another; of seeing her daughter suffer indignities, neglect and abuse at the hands of nursing home personnel, a Bay Area mother shot her daughter to death and then killed herself on Sunday, September 13, 2009. Diana Harden wrote ABC Channel 7’s Dan Noyes a 5-page letter outlining the horrendous conditions her daughter, Yvette, had to endure over the years since she was injured in a car accident. For the past 6 years, Yvette Harden was a resident of Oakland Springs Care Center, in Oakland, California – a facility that in 2008 alone had 54 complaints lodged against it. Hundreds of deficiencies have been issued against the facility over the past 6 years.
Yvette Harden should not have been in a nursing home in the first place. She and her mother should have been given the support necessary to help her stay at home.
The nursing home personnel who persecuted and mistreated Yvette Harden should be prosecuted, jailed and never allowed to go near residents again.
California’s Governor, Health and Human Services and Department of Public Health, Licensing and Certification, should be ashamed. This is their legacy – after years of catering to the nursing home industry and failing to live up to their mandate to protect California’s nursing home residents.
ABC7 is following up on this story and has asked that your stories be sent to: dan.noyes@abc.com
To see the ABC7 story, click here:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=7014866
You can read Diana Harden’s letter to ABC News here:
Noyes-nursing-home-letter.pdf