SoCal nursing home fined $100,000 for patient's death

A Riverside County nursing home was fined $100,000 for the death of a 91-year-old woman who was dropped on her head.

Citrus Nursing Center in Fontana was cited last month for failing to provide patient safety, according to the California Department of Health.

The nursing home is owned by Sunmar Healthcare in Brea. A call to owner Frank Johnson on Saturday was not immediately returned.

The elderly patient was injured on Feb. 24 as a nursing assistant improperly tried to transfer her from a wheelchair to a bed without help, according to a health department citation. She died nine days later.

The nursing home can appeal the penalty.

The home also was fined a total of $25,000 last year in connection with the 2004 death of a patient who died from a bacterial infection and for failing to contact a doctor about a diabetic patient whose blood-sugar levels had reached unsafe levels.

Those fines are being appealed, said Ken August, a health department spokesman.