Families of Hacienda patients want embattled facility to remain open

PHOENIX — Families of Hacienda HealthCare patients offered support for the embattled facility Monday, asking for it to remain open despite continued problems.

Family members praised the Phoenix care facility’s transparency and honesty since it came under intense scrutiny earlier this year after a licensed nurse was accused of impregnating an incapacitated patient who gave birth in late December.

“I think we must keep Hacienda open. Even if there was another facility, I’d never consider moving my son,” Tammy Schwartz-Strobel, whose son, Logan, is a Hacienda resident, told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Monday. “It’s excellent care, it’s excellent administration and I’m very proud our son is fortunate to live the life that he can here.”

Schwartz-Strobel and her husband, Alan Strobel, said they moved from New York to Arizona partly to get their son to Hacienda.

They said Logan has been happy at Hacienda over the past three years and hasn’t been taken to a hospital during that time, a problem the family said they’ve dealt with at other facilities.

Continued issues since the accused rape haven’t deterred the family’s faith in Hacienda.

“I think the institution has worked through its problems,” Strobel said.

Last month, a patient was found with maggots under his bandage near an incision.

The Arizona Department of Health Services on June 14 issued a notice of intent to revoke Hacienda Healthcare’s license as a result.

Dr. Alan Strobel, whose 30yo son is a patient at Hacienda Healthcare, says facility must stay open where his son gets good treatment. He knows about rape that led to female patients giving birth there. ⁦@KTAR923⁩ pic.twitter.com/yhuVD0K9Ch

— Peter Samore (@ktarpetersamore) July 1, 2019

Heidi Reid-Champigny, whose brother is a Hacienda resident, believes the facility’s problems aren’t atypical for a high-intensity care facility.

“There’s no perfect place,” Reid-Champigny said. “When you are dealing especially with medical people on this level, there are going to be mistakes, things we never expected in a million years, like the nurse.

“Those kinds of things are anomalies.”

The support comes during an important week for the facility.

Hacienda’s Medicaid participation is set to end effective Wednesday, according to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services letter obtained by ABC15.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Mac & Gaydos last week he would prefer not to move the facility’s longtime patients.

“There has never been one moment where we’ve been disappointed,” Reid-Champigny said. “It’s better than living at state institutions.”

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