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| Nursing home replies to sex-offender suit |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 06/14/2004 |
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The Minneapolis, Minn., nursing home accused of failing to protect residents from sex offenders says state and federal privacy laws prevented it from telling residents the men were living there. That claim is part of a broad denial of culpability Concordia Care Center filed last Monday with Hennepin County District Court. Attorney General Mike Hatch, who sued Concordia two weeks ago, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that the home is wrong about the laws. He said officials could have notified residents offenders were there without specifically identifying them. "If my mother were living there in a locked ward with a sex offender, I'd want to know about it," he said. In his lawsuit, Hatch accused Concordia and its owner, Benchmark Healthcare of Minneapolis, of not protecting other mentally and physically frail residents from alleged abuse by two of the five offenders living there; violating consumer protection laws by not notifying current and prospective residents that sex offenders lived there; and operating with "unsafe and deplorable (living) conditions." He asked that a new administrator be named to take over the home and that the home be forced to pay unspecified damages. In its response, Concordia said that state and federal patient bills of rights and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act prohibit it from disclosing the personal and medical history of residents, including those placed there by the state Corrections Department. Concordia also noted that state and federal laws give exclusive oversight authority to the state Department of Health. The response, filed by Concordia's attorney, Sam Orbovich, also denied that the home had broken any consumer or Medicaid fraud laws. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered the Corrections Department to find ways to segregate the two sex offenders who remained at Concordia. |
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