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By Phil Helsel and Associated Press
An Arizona long-term care facility where a disabled patient was sexually assaulted and gave birth will be closed, announced the company Thursday.
The Hacienda HealthCare Board of Directors came to understand that it was simply not viable to continue operating our intermediate care facility for the intellectually disabled, said the company in a statement. Her qualified nursing home will remain open.
Nathan Sutherland, a 36-year-old former Hacienda nurse, was arrested on January 22 and charged with sexual assault. He has since pleaded not guilty.
The case was revealed in late December after a 29-year-old woman, a Hacienda patient for years, had given birth and given birth, the authorities said. A lawyer representing the woman's family stated that she suffered severe intellectual disabilities as a result of seizures very early in her childhood.
Hacienda's council voted Friday on the move, and "we will begin to transition customers and eventually stop operating the ICF-ID unit. "
There are 37 patients in the facility," reported KPNX, an affiliate of NBC, Phoenix.Hacienda HealthCare said it was working with state agencies to transfer patients from unity to other institutions. [19659007] "The care of our patients remains our highest priority and we will do everything in our power to ensure a smooth transition for them and their families", Hacienda HealthCare said, and not in the interest of patients.
"We encourage Hacienda to work with the state to find a way forward," said the Department of Economic Security of Canada. Arizona in a statement, according to the Associated Press. "Public agencies are making every effort to reach a conclusion beneficial to patients, some of whom have spent most of their lives in this facility."
The state had ordered Hacienda to call on a third management team.
Sutherland is currently being held in Maricopa County Jail instead of a $ 500,000 bail, according to the online prison records.
The woman gave birth on December 29th. DNA samples from many of the facility's employees were requested during the survey, and Sutherland's DNA matches that of the baby, police said.
Sutherland had been working for Hacienda HealthCare since 2011, but had been fired after The family of the patient who gave birth said in a statement in January that "the baby is born into a loving family and that it will be well cared for" . [1965902] 1] Phil Helsel is a journalist for NBC News.
