A Brius nursing home in Humboldt County was hit this week with eight fines totaling $160,000 in connection with what one former staffer calls “nightmare” conditions, the North Coast Journal reported Wednesday. The California Department of Public Health, which licenses and investigates the state’s nursing homes, levied the fines for patient-care, staffing, and administrative violations at the 99-bed Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center.

Below, BriusWatch.org has posted a screenshot from the agency’s website regarding the fines.

A second Brius facility, Granada Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, “was also hit with state enforcement actions and has been asked to pay $4,000 for two separate incidents of failing to self-report abuse,” according to the Journal.

The eight fines, each of which carry a $20,000 administrative penalty, were levied against Brius’ Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, which Brius and its CEO Shlomo Rechnitz have operated since 2011.

The Journal’s Linda Stansberry reports that the facility was visited by state inspectors in December and “has been dogged by allegations of understaffing and improper patient care.” Stansberry cites one former staff member who said the facility’s understaffing is “a nightmare” and “said patients were ‘covered in feces’ and suffering falls, especially during the night.”

The article also describes the experience of the son of a former patient at Eureka, who filed a complaint with the state agency about inadequate staffing and an unsafe environment that “contributed to his mother’s fall and her placement in hospice care in August 2016.”

See the North Coast Journal’s full article “Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center Fined $160,000 by State” for more details.

The following screenshot from the California Department of Public Health’s website

describes two of the eight fines levied against Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center this week.