Call Kurtis Investigates: No phones at West Sacramento nursing home
WEST SACRAMENTO - A Manteca viewer says the phone lines went down at her husband's nursing home in West Sacramento, and she wasn't able to reach him.
When she felt ignored, it was time to call on Kurtis Ming.
When Kurtis first reached out to the nursing home, a staff member confirmed that the portable phone they bring to patients stopped working, and they couldn't give me a solution to reach a patient. The viewer lives more than an hour away from her husband and can only visit him on Fridays. She's worried.
"I can't get ahold of my husband," says Ana Phillips, who calls her husband, Rob, daily, in between her weekly visits to see him at River Bend Nursing. "I want to know how he's feeling every day. If he's hungry."
Rob has been at River Bend since 2021, recovering from a serious head injury. But Ana says, starting mid-January, the workers at River Bend said they couldn't bring a phone to her husband, claiming the phone system is broken.
"I can't even get ahold of the person who's in charge of the phones," she said.
Kurtis, too, was told when he called, that the portable phones they bring to patients stopped working two weeks earlier.
But under federal law, anyone in a nursing home "has the right to have reasonable access to the use of a telephone," according to the Code of Federal Regulations. Phone access means a great deal to Ana and her husband.
"It helps him, it helps his mental health and mine as well," she told CBS13.
Tony Chicotel, a senior attorney with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform says that the right to communicate is a critical right for patients.
"We know that isolation causes enormous health and psychological damage to residents," said Chicotel, who added, that without exceptional circumstances, "it would be illegal for a facility to go two weeks or more without phone access for the residents."
Kurtis reached out repeatedly to the administrator for River Bend Nursing over three days and received no response. So, the team tracked down one of the owners, Richard Martin, who didn't seem to know what CBS13 was talking about. He later told the station: "once we learned of this issue pertaining to the resident cordless phones... we purchased disposable cell phones for anyone that would like to use them... we appreciate the concern and we will continue to strive to make sure that our patients are well cared for."
Ana confirms that she finally got through to Rob.
"I'm hoping that they get an update phone system," she said. "So that this never happens again to any family members."
Ana says that she'd love to move Rob to a facility closer to her, but says this is the only facility with his Medi-Cal insurance.
Each region has a long-term care ombudsman program, which advocates for people in nursing homes. After CBS13 contacted them about River Bend, they sent someone to the facility who confirmed the temporary fix with a permanent one on the way, as well as a recent change in management.