CEO of Facility Quits After Women in Vegetative State Gives Birth

After being in a vegetative state for a decade, woman in a US facility delivers baby. Cops probing sexual assault.

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The Chief Executive Officer Bill Timmons of Hacienda HealthCare in Arizona, where a woman in vegetative state gave birth recently, resigned on Monday, 7 January, even as police continued to examine how she was impregnated, reported National Public Radio.

The private medical facility provides long-term care for people with intellectual disabilities.

Earlier this week, the police had launched an investigation into allegations of sexual assault after the patient delivered the child.

Representatives from the Arizona Department of Health Services said that they were aware of the allegations and their inspectors were on the job of checking on the rest of the patients.

A Hacienda HealthCare representative, said that they “stand fully committed to getting to the truth of what, for us, represents an unprecedented matter.”

Facility Claims ‘No Knowledge’ of Pregnancy

According to Arizona’s Family, sources at the facility said that they had no idea the patient was pregnant until the time she pretty much started delivering.

“From what I’ve been told she was moaning. And they didn’t know what was wrong with her. There was a nurse present and from what I’ve heard she’s the one that delivered the baby. The baby is healthy,” the source is reported to have said.

Doctors noted that one of the biggest differences between a healthy woman giving birth versus someone in a vegetative state was that the latter would be unable to push the baby out. There is also little clarity on how much pain she experienced given that she was not in a conscious state.

The institution has 74 beds and cares for several patients with a range of developmental conditions and cognitive abilities. The facility had also come under fire by state investigators in 2017 for not providing adequate privacy to patients while they showered and got ready.

Sources in the facility also said that a new rule had come into place after the incident, where a male employee would have to be accompanied by a female staffer if entering the room of a female patient.

(With inputs from Arizona’s Family and the New York Times.)