Inspector Testified, Now She’s Transferred

Since 1976, Fran Guest has been one of six state employees who investigate conditions in Orange County’s 400 board and care homes for the elderly.

A nurse by training, she has seen more than enough in her 12 years to make her outraged: signs of severe medical neglect and, in some instances, physical and sexual abuse.

But when Guest returns from vacation to work at the state Department of Social Service’s Community Care Licensing Division in a week--she’ll be transferred to inspect day-care facilities for children.

State officials are calling Guest’s job change “a routine personnel matter.”

But Guest, who five months ago harshly criticized her agency in front of a state commission, says it’s punishment.

“I’m surprised, I’m shocked,” Guest said Friday, four days after receiving a letter notifying her of the transfer.

“I think this was coming. The word was out she was critical of the department,” said Mary E. Kelly, Guest’s attorney, who is filing complaints about the transfer with Guest’s supervisors and the state personnel board.

Last February, Guest appeared before the state Commission on Government Organization and Economy--the so-called Little Hoover Commission. The panel is investigating conditions in the county’s board and care facilities, which together house about 2,500 elderly.

In her testimony, Guest said she had been criticized by her superiors for generating too many reports of substandard facilities. Also, she complained that her workload was shifted so she couldn’t make critical follow-up inspections.

She testified that the agency moved too slowly in closing homes with problems or removing mistreated patients. She also said she was warned not to use her medical training to evaluate injuries and suspected abuse.

“I created a problem they couldn’t handle,” she said at the time.

Also at the February hearing, Fred Miller, the state Social Services Department’s deputy director for community care licensing, told the commission that he had originally informed Guest that she could not testify but changed his mind after discovering that the commission has subpoena powers.

Miller also told commissioners that some of Guest’s testimony was inaccurate and that reports of abuse and neglect in board and care homes are acted upon immediately.

Miller was unavailable for comment Friday. But Kathleen Norris, a department spokeswoman, said that Guest’s reassignment “had nothing to do with her testimony.”

Fred Dumont, who heads the 18-person community care licensing division in Orange County and who notified Guest of her transfer, said Friday that Guest is being made a day-care inspector “indefinitely” because the five-person day-care unit faces a shortage of employees.

But in his letter to Guest, which attorney Kelly read to a reporter, Dumont told of another reason for Guest’s transfer: “ . . . increasing confrontations with your supervisor during recent weeks regarding the apparent conflict over your nursing background and duties as a licensing program analyst.”

At another point, the letter says, “Please be aware that this is not a disciplinary or punitive action.”

Dumont wouldn’t elaborate on the conflicts mentioned in the letter.

Guest’s transfer has left officials worried at the Orange County Council on Aging’s ombudsman service, which tracks and investigates abuse of the elderly. Linda Dean, who works for the ombudsman service, said Guest’s transfer will “hurt the elderly” because Guest has been the only one of the division’s six Orange County inspectors who has reported abuse of the elderly to her agency.

“I think this sends a message that if you criticize the department, you’re out,” Dean said.

According to both Dean and Guest, elderly abuse in the county’s board and care facilities is a significant problem and takes many forms, ranging from mishandling medicines and a lack of food to locked doors. These have created “an overall and total pattern of neglect and abuse that has never been” corrected, she said.

Guest said that she was legally obligated as a state inspector and morally bound as a nurse to call instances of abuse to the state and to other agencies.

Attorney Kelly said she will fight the transfer through state administrative channels, but if that doesn’t work, she’ll take legal action. “I’m also hopeful we can get the support of some key people,” Kelly added, such as Nathan Shapell, chairman of the Little Hoover Commission.

While stressing that he doesn’t know the full story yet, Shapell said that if Guest’s transfer was indeed punishment, “I am literally speechless.”

Shapell said Guest was “very knowledgeable,” adding that “she made a statement to us that she was afraid that if she did testify she would be transferred, which is punishment.

“We will ask the governor to look into this situation immediately if she was transferred because of information she gave to Little Hoover,” he said. “This case is not over by any means.”