Suit alleges retaliation for complaint
COUNTY: Action says worker was disciplined after reporting elder abuse, caregiver fraud.
By Troy Anderson
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 01/07/2008 09:39:28 PM PST
In another local whistle-blower retaliation case, a civil rights attorney has filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County, alleging it retaliated against a worker who reported elder abuse and in-home care fraud.
Leo James Terrell is expected to address the Board of Supervisors today on behalf of his client, Palmdale resident and Department of Public Social Services employee Sandra Siedenburg, who works in the county's In-Home Supportive Services program in Lancaster.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks the court to issue an injunction barring the county from spending any more money on the program if it continues to ignore allegations of fraud and elder abuse.
"These so-called in-home health-care providers routinely brutalized some of their (clients), have criminal records and report to the county that they are still taking care of an individual when in fact (the individual is) deceased," Terrell said Monday.
Two weeks ago, his client testified before a grand jury about the allegations, he said.
"She is being punished for reporting this," he added.
County officials did not return calls seeking comment.
For more than six years, Siedenburg has worked as an IHSS intake worker helping some of the more than 100,000 elderly and disabled people in the county who receive in-home care services. In 2006, she was appointed backup supervisor of her unit.
She noticed many instances of home-care workers
abusing clients and committing IHSS fraud and Medi-Cal fraud, Terrell wrote in the lawsuit. She reported the incidents to her supervisors, to no avail.
When she asked why, DPSS retaliated against her, Terrell wrote.
On Feb. 7, Siedenburg went to her supervisor to report fraud was occurring in a home at the hands of an IHSS provider. But the supervisor yelled at Siedenburg, saying she would investigate her, and accused her of "trying to shut the place down," Terrell wrote.
Two days later, DPSS retaliated against her by transferring her to a different job and removing her as backup supervisor, Terrell wrote.
In June, Terrell wrote a letter to Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky informing him that the county had failed to investigate the allegations. Terrell asked the Board of Supervisors to look into it.
In response, Principal Deputy County Counsel Sheilah Curtis wrote a letter to Terrell, saying her office had asked DPSS to conduct an investigation.
"It appears from our review of the matter that Ms. Siedenburg herself requested a transfer from working on approved case files to an intake files position," Curtis wrote. "In addition, Ms. Seidenburg's fraud referrals were taken seriously and have been thoroughly investigated."
The county settled a similar whistleblower case in late 2006 for $250,000. Gamil Youssef began working for DPSS in 1998 as an eligibility worker. But after he notified his supervisor in 2001 that an applicant had tried to get food stamps using a fake Social Security number and expired driver's license, his managers and supervisors called him a "terrorist," began keeping a secret file on him and transferred him to a different office where he was assigned no duties.
SOURCE
No comments:
Post a Comment