Mom, 81, severely injured after routine procedure at Sutter Roseville. Her kids ask: How?
Alla Naidenko was admitted to Sutter Roseville Medical Center in January to remove kidney stones. A day later, the 81-year-old grandmother lay in intensive care, covered in bruises from severe injuries to her face and head, paralyzed and comatose after being rushed into surgery for a life-threatening brain hemorrhage.
Naidenko, a retired physician, was on a ventilator for weeks and still receives nourishment from a feeding tube. She has severe cognitive impairment.
Her adult son, Yuriy Seretskiy said that, upon waking after sustaining her injuries, his mother told him that “someone or something hit her, but she could not remember.”
He said he knows she’ll never be the same.
How Naidenko ended up fighting for her life 48 hours after what was to be a routine procedure remains a mystery months later. Now, four months after filing a lawsuit in Placer Superior Court alleging elder abuse and negligence in the January incident, Seretskiy contacted The Bee to warn about the dangers he claims his family found behind the Roseville hospital’s doors.
“We never received any official explanation of what exactly happened on that day,” Seretskiy said.
In a statement emailed to The Bee on Monday, Sutter officials said their commitment to patient privacy as well as legal requirements prevent them from providing specifics of what happened while Naidenko was in the hospital’s care.
“Maintaining high quality patient care is at the heart of our work, and we deeply value the trust our patients place in us to deliver comprehensive, compassionate care,” they stated. “We take patient concerns seriously, and we are currently reviewing the specifics of the suit.”
No records provided for day of injury
Seretskiy said Sutter Roseville has not taken responsibility and his family has not received an apology. He said no information has been forthcoming about that day: where in the hospital his mother stayed, who was on duty or what circumstances led to her injuries. He accused the hospital of covering up the incident and Sutter lawyers of delay tactics.
“Even in her medical record, which we requested right after that incident, that day was completely erased,” Seretskiy said. “Based on her appearance and lack of reasonable explanation, I can only assume that my mother was physically assaulted by someone in the hospital. ... The hospital has shown that their staff can abuse an elderly patient with disregard to the consequences of what happened on their watch.”
Seretskiy said a social worker at the hospital told him that his mother “was probably never going to recognize us, that there was no point in wasting time or effort or any money on that, to just send her to the hospice and let her go.”
Caring for a patient with such injuries would be unbelievably expensive, Seretskiy said they told him.
When Naidenko was initially released from the hospital, her children decided to send her to a skilled nursing facility for care, but her condition deteriorated. From January through March, Seretskiy said, Naidenko ping-ponged between the hospital and the nursing facility several times.
“The hospital said there was nothing they could do, and they discharged her to the nursing home,” Seretskiy said. “The nursing home said they were not going to get paid for her because there was no way her condition was going to improve, that Medi-Cal pays to the nursing home only when the patient is improving. Otherwise, they send her to hospice where people technically go to die.”
So, Seretskiy brought his mother home in early April and hired a team of licensed professionals — massage therapists, nurses, speech therapists and aides who speak Naidenko’s native Russian to sit with her when family cannot.
Once home, mom’s condition improves
Naidenko arrived home covered in bed sores, he said, but those cleared up with weeks of tending by family and staff, and over the ensuing months, Naidenko has made significant strides in cognition and physical movement.
“She definitely recognizes all of us,” Seretskiy said. “She knows our names. She cannot speak in big sentences, but she definitely responds. All her responses make sense, so it’s not like she’s saying some nonsense.”
Naidenko can move her arms. She has told them the names of her favorite movies. She recognized a picture of her grandchild, born last September. One day, while watching a TV news channel, she read the date on the screen and the words “breaking news.”
While she’s still getting her nourishment from a tube that feeds into her digestive system, Seretskiy emailed The Bee a video of his mother eating soft food.
He and other family members also lift Naidenko into a wheelchair, he said, to take her outside to enjoy the sun in a nearby park.
The family have been able to keep the cost of therapy and 24-hour monitoring to roughly $14,000 a month by cobbling together services on their own, Seretskiy said, but because that has been difficult to manage, they will be contracting with a single home care provider that will charge them $23,500 a month.
Seretskiy said he’s depleted his savings and is now selling his Granite Bay home to get enough money to continue to fund care and rehabilitation needed since his mother’s stay at Sutter Roseville.
Seretskiy said the family’s attorney warned him that this sort of lawsuit could take years to conclude, and since the coronavirus pandemic has slowed action in the courts, he should expect even more delays.
Still, Seretskiy said, it’s his hope that he will get enough money from the lawsuit to continue to provide care for his mother who marked her 82nd birthday in June.
“They were all wrong. She did improve,” Seretskiy said. ”She’s way better right now.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
