San Francisco agreed to settle the second of three lawsuits related to a shocking patient abuse scandal at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in 2019.
The board of directors on Tuesday approved a $2.2 million settlement for 11 patients then in the city-run facility that cares for San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents.
The lawsuit, filed in May 2021 against the city, its health department, Laguna Honda and unnamed employees, alleges that hospital staff verbally, mentally and physically abused patients at the facility and violated their privacy.
“The scale of the wrongdoing is conscience-shattering,” the complaint said, “and includes towel-gagging one of the plaintiffs, photographing a resident with her shirt pulled up and her breasts exposed, and photographing patients in distress,” among others photographing a resident balled up on the floor, taking one or more photographs of a male plaintiff’s scrotum.”
The staff then texted each other pictures and videos of the abuse, the complaint said, “deliberately causing embarrassment, shame and mockery to the plaintiffs.” The evidence highlights a culture of abuse at Laguna Honda Hospital.”
A 2019 investigation by the state Department of Health accused six workers at the nursing home, which then cared for 780 low-income elderly and disabled residents, of years of abuse of 23 patients. The city’s health department, which operates the facility, acknowledged the alleged abuse and created a corrective plan at the time.
“We believe that given all the circumstances, this is a reasonable resolution,” prosecutors spokeswoman Jen Kwart said Tuesday in a statement on the settlement of the lawsuit. “Laguna Honda Hospital is committed to providing excellent care and treating all residents with dignity.”
The city settled the first of three lawsuits in the case in 2021 for $800,000. A class action lawsuit is pending.
The abuse scandal preceded and is unrelated to Laguna Honda’s recent troubles as the nursing home seeks to improve conditions to maintain its lifeline of federal funding. Regulators revoked his entitlement to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements in April 2022 after inspections revealed drug use among patients and other safety violations.
Federal regulators ordered the hospital to begin discharging patients in the face of a possible closure last summer, but when 12 people died shortly after the discharge, regulators halted operations in July. The hospital recently received a September 19 deadline extension that may have forced it to resume patient transfers as it continues a comprehensive health and safety overhaul.
A court settlement last fall gave Laguna Honda until Nov. 13 to try to qualify for reinstatement of its federal funds.
Reach Mallory Moench: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com
