Convicted Felons Sent to Bay Area Nursing Home
Four prisoners are among the first to be released under state's medical parole program
Holcomb speaks with some difficulty, although he is able to see and hear, Patrick Sparks, his lawyer, said during a medical parole hearing last September. Yet Sparks said that his client retained “the capacity in his mind for dangerousness,” a transcript shows. “Not to say that he’s the Godfather or anything, but he’s a pretty dangerous guy,” he said.
Even so, the California Board of Parole Hearings found that because of Holcomb’s disabilities “the conditions under which the inmate would be released will not pose a reasonable threat to public safety.”
Today Holcomb lives in the Idylwood Care Center, a private 172-bed nursing home in a leafy suburban neighborhood in Sunnyvale, near a park and a private school. He and three other medical parolees from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — murderers, drug dealers and burglars, ranging in age from 40s to 70s — are watched by medical staff instead of by prison guards.
The four are among the first 29 prisoners to be granted medical parole under a 2010 California law intended to save the state tens of millions of dollars in medical and guarding costs for permanently, medically incapacitated prisoners. Some of the parolees are bedridden, while others can be moved by wheelchair, and officials said that the parolees posed no threat to others.
Yet the medical parole program is raising concerns among the state’s long-term care ombudsmen, who investigate complaints from residents of nursing homes.
“There are worries involved in putting prisoners in with the regular population of frail seniors, but there is a lot of risk involved in putting them in with psych patients,” said Wanda Hale, who visited the Idylwood Care Center as the program manager for the long-term care ombudsman program at Catholic Charities in Santa Clara County. “My concern is that there is a lot of potential for problems. They just haven’t happened yet.”
The nursing facility in Sunnyvale received its first medical parolee from the Department of Corrections in August. They are all forbidden from leaving the Idylwood premises, except in a medical emergency, and they are confined to a 22-bed locked unit that they share with seven psychiatric patients.
“These medical parolees are both physically and mentally incapacitated,” said Larry Kamer, a spokesman for the nursing home, which is operated by Crestwood Behavioral Health of Sacramento. “In fact, in all but one case, they’re not even alert.”
One parolee’s interactions with staff have raised concerns, however. Peter Post, a medical parolee at another facility, “allegedly made indecent gestures to female nurses at a San Diego area long-term care facility” soon after arriving there in November, according to the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Board of Parole hearings determined that Post was still eligible for medical parole.
Facilities that care for medical parolees are not required to inform other patients or their families about the parolees. The ombudsmen receive no formal notification when medical parolees are transferred to facilities in their region.
Other homes in California that accept medical parolees include Magnolia Special Care Center in El Cajon in the San Diego area and San Fernando Post Acute Hospital in Sylmar in Los Angeles, parole hearing transcripts show.
Frank DeFelice
When a convict becomes so sick, he's bedridden, why not discharge him? He won't get any better with lousy prison food and poor medical care. Or do we want him to suffer as much as possible?
June Ko-Dial
i am a quadriplegic and my opinion is - as long as their mouths and minds work there is potential to be dangerous. they could hire hits a lot easier in a Nursing Home as opposed to being in a prison, WHERE THEY BELONG!! i wouldn't want to be in a Nursing home with murderers.
June Ko-Dial
Yikes,CORRECTION - i am not a quadreplegic, i have almost no use of three limbs.
Allen Jones
You are also paranoid.
June Ko-Dial
well, i'm not normally, but going back and rereading what i wrote was pretty far out there.
b s
CA needs to save money and this is a reasonable way of doing it. Really, when was the last time a quadriplegic man/woman hired a hit man? And if that is going to happen, frankly it's much more likely to happen in the prison (where you are likely surrounded by a bunch of hit men or people who have connections to hit men) than in a nursing home.
Roland Salvato
"Medicare pays 30%". Who pays the rest? The State? You and me?
Unfortunately if they cannot take care of themselves, there is no alternative. Para- and quadriplegics will die if not take care of within one month.
Katharine Mieszkowski
Roland, just to clarify the payment for medical are while felons are on medical parolee: the state pays the nursing homes for their care. California then seeks reimbursement for some of these costs from the federal government from whatever programs the parolees might be eligible for, like Medicare. But if the parolee has assets, the state can seize those too to pay for their care. I hope that makes it clear.
Allen Jones
I am opposed to using "Save money" as a reason for this move. I support the fact that these people do not belong in prison any longer period.
Furthermore, Patricia Wright, blind, diabetic, and terminally ill with cancer, is also bound to a wheelchair and wears a diaper. Governor Jerry Brown, aware of her case of conspiracy to the murder of her ex-husband agreed to grant her clemency. However, current clemency laws prevents any governor from using his or her commonsense, compassion and understanding of state prison rising cost, to grant this dying prisoner clemency or even at the very least sent to a home like these 29 felons. And by the way: Patricia Wright is innocent.
Dean Clark
I find it interesting that many of us may not have considered the training aspects. The people who work in the nursing home are trained in different ways to handle particular issues that may arise by serving the elderly. However if there are other issues such as anger management or emotional disturbed issues. Will the current staff be able to deal with these issues as they arise at the nursing homes. Maybe there should be a separate location for these individuals who made bad choices early in life and still pose a possible risk to society.
Katharine Mieszkowski
Dean, you make a good point about training. During my reporting, the management of the Idylwood Care Center did mention that the medical staff in the unit that cares for the medical parolees have received additional training, for instance, on how to deal with manipulative personalities.
Andrew Ferguson
As stated, these medical parolees are permanently profoundly disabled - physically and mentally incapacitated; not even alert.
Is there a reason that they cannot be paroled to their families who in turn could place them in a nursing home?
MotherLodeBeth
What troubles me about this situation is while the state will indeed save hundreds of millions of dollars, the sad fact is they are passing the cost on to all of the tax payers since they are expecting the Federal government to pay for these convicts care.
And the article says facilities that care for medical parolees are not required to inform other patients or their families about the parolees. The ombudsmen receive no formal notification when medical parolees are transferred to facilities in their region. But are the families of their victims notified? If someone is convicted of a sex crime they are listed on a site where folks can check to see if any are in their neighborhood.
And if you were a family who chose a private care facility for your loved one and you were paying the costs, would you not want to know the place wasn't housing prisoners?
You know what else is sad? Their victimes who cannot afford the same care for themselves or their own family members. Been there done that and its NOT fair!!
Frank DeFelice
A convict is still a human being. God loves him as much as God loves you. The Old Testament claims God said "vengeance is mine", but I doubt God would say that. God is not vengeful.
A charged headline like "convicted felon" doesn't help. It's not only redundant, it galvanizes people unnecessarily. If the state wants to save money, release these men if someone can care for them. But don't turn them out into the streets.