Exclusive: Following today’s announcement of a $90 million gift to the Motion Picture Fund by the Dreamworks trio, I stumbled across a repressed report about the Actors Home in Woodland Hills, California. The report was from the State of California, and obtained by the California Advocates of Nursing Home Reform though a Freedom of Information act request. They published the report, but according to executive director Pat McGinnis, it was ignored not only by the Department of Health, but by the LA Times, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, and all the self-proclaiming website who say they cover Hollywood.

There are two reports. One is about the facility itself and the other is a physicians report. There was a surprise inspection of the facility on March 7th–about two weeks after the MPTF’s glittery “Night Before” fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel with lots of stars and fancy gifts for donors. The report was issued on May 21, 2012, to Seth Ellis, then the head of Motion Picture Fund, from the California Department of Justice.  Ellis was subsequently fired from the MPTF; his dismissal was noted in some publications with no mention of the report’s existence.

also read from September 2010: http://www.showbiz411.com/2010/08/12/stop-the-party-reports-says-neglect-at-motion-picture-home-injuries-broken-laws

The findings of the inspector are attached here. They include an Oxygen tank with no oxygen, peeling paint in a patient’s room, and dozens of questionable medical situations. One room had a gaping hole in its wall.

The second report, a physician’s report, is much worse. Prepared by Kathryn Locatell, MD, the report is actually shocking. Locatell, who did all the reports for nursing homes last year, is a specialist. She found “deficient care.” She said the chief physican had a “lack of basic knowledge.” Locatell basically concludes that the patients are being over medicated. She described “needless suffering” of dying patients. Locatell wrote: “The psychotropic medications policies in this facility are alarming.”

Nurses’ flow-sheets consisted of “illegible squiggles.”

Most horrific: Locatell observed that the nursing care was a disaster–and mean. She wrote: “When residents reach the dying stage, care is definitely not in conformance with prevailing standards and residents are needlessly suffering as they die.”

How could this be? Hundreds of millions of dollars have been donated to this facility by movie studios, executives, and stars? No nursing home in America has received this kind of attention, fundraising. or interest. And yet, Locatell describes a nightmarish situation–and one not that different, mind you, from less well endowed or publicized places.

And yet executive director Bob Beitcher wrote this on the MPTF website in repsonse: “I hate surprises, don’t you? Especially bad ones. So when we received some very disheartening results a few weeks ago from a surprise survey of our skilled nursing facilities from Operation Guardians (OG), a team at the California Department of Justice focused on potential violations of federal, state, and local laws and regulations, I was none too happy. In fact, I was downright shocked. I thought we were better, much better, than how we were depicted in the OG reports. In fact, I was confident we were.” He concluded that changes had to be made, but wrote, as a defense: “I could also see as clearly how the reports were wrapped in an overall negative bias…”

Maybe Dr. Locatell wasn’t a movie fan or something. Why would she biased against the Motion Picture Fund?

Locatell wrote very seriously: In summary, systemic problems with the provision of medical care and services, with extreme polypharmacy and the unwarranted prescription of psychoactive agents without adequate indications or consent, create a risk of possible substantial harm to every resident of the facility.”

Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen– the three original principals in Dreamworks SKG– are each giving $30 million to the Motion Picture Television Fund, the foundation that operates the Actors’ homes and takes care of veteran industry players. This, despite–or maybe because of — a terrifying August report about the Woodland Hills skilled nursing unit. “Residents,” the report reads, “are needlessly suffering as they die.” (See below.)

Katzenberg, of course, has been instrumental in raising money for the MPTF, and was inadvertently caught up in the controversy about closing down long term medical care there. (It’s since been resolved favorably to the residents.) His heart has certainly been in the right place, and so has his wallet. George Clooney is the current chairman of the drive to raise $350 million to put the MPTF in good shape. He’s already gotten pledges of $30 mil each from producer Steve Bing and media mogul Barry Diller, and $20 mi each from Kirk and Anne Douglas, and News Corp.

However: the MPTF still has some severe problems. A report in August from the group Operation Guardians was severely critical of the care at the facility’s skilled nursing unit. This is from the report, on the OG website http://www.canhr.org/operationguardians/MotionPictureTelevisionFund_OG.html.

More on this report shortly, but here’s the summary:

Motion Picture and Television Fund Skilled Nursing Units – Woodland Hills

Summary

This facility’s atmosphere is described as chaotic and disorganized. An attending physician (who is also the medical director) “lacks basic medical knowledge concerning standards applicable to geriatric patients,” specifically the administration of medication. Physician charting notes lack meaningful evidence of the medical decision making process. Most residents are prescribed over ten medications, some even upwards of twenty. Medications are frequently administered solely to treat the side effects of other medications. One resident, before her death at the facility, had experienced a severe and extremely painful skin reaction to one of her numerous prescribed medications. Instead of discontinuing each medication one-by-one to determine which one caused the reaction, the patient was treated with topical ointment. According to the patient’s medical records, pain management was neglected.

The physician and nurse practitioner often treat patients without communicating. In one instance, the physician recommended an increase in the dosage of a medication that had been discontinued by the nurse practitioner. Painful morphine injections are administered to palliative patients whose pain medication could easily be administered orally. Two patients who had developed pressure ulcers were not adequately treated.

“Systemic problems…with extreme polypharmacy and the unwarranted prescription of psychoactive agents without adequate indications or consent…When residents reach the dying stage, care is definitely not in conformance with prevailing standards and residents are needlessly suffering as they die.”

On the MPTF website, the facility’s director, Bob Beitcher, says he’s trying to improve the situation. http://tinyurl.com/8fdn6um. Maybe the additional funds will help. Let’s hope so. In 2010, Beicher’s salary was $441,000. You’d think the least he could do is prevent needless suffering.

Elton John is planning a return to Broadway as a composer with Bernie Taupin, and partner/husband David Furnish as producer. Furnish confirmed this last night at a glittery black tie fundraiser for the Elton John AIDS Foundation here in New York at Cipriani downtown. The only thing I know is that the musical will be an original book, with new and old songs by Elton and Bernie. Of course, this team has had mega success with “Billy Elliott,” and Elton had a hit years ago with “Aida.” No word yet on who will direct, but Stephen Daldry can’t be so far away.

Meantime, the EJAF– one of the very best foundations– was celebrating several things including a major donation from Lady Gaga via Yoko Ono. Gaga won of Yoko’s LennonOno Peace Prizes that came with a cash award. Gaga immediately donated the money to EJAF. Furnish told me how pleased and grateful he was. “We have a wonderful relationship with Lady Gaga,” he said.

Anderson Cooper emceed the event last night (for the sixth straight year) which later was set to feature a performance by Stevie Nicks. But in the crowd were New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was an honoree; Matt Lauer, Brooke Shields, Tony winner Judith Light, Lance Bass, Courtney Love, Julian Schnabel, Alan Cumming, Cheyenne Jackson, Ingrid Sischy and Sandy Brandt of Vanity Fair, and Viacom chief Phillippe Daumann.

And who stopped by? Madonna’s legendary publicist, Liz Rosenberg. Elton and Madonna have buried the hatchet. Anyway, Sir Elton and Liz are friends from waaay back. “I love Elton, I’m not fighting with him!” exclaimed a widely smiling Liz.

Everyone loves Elton John, kids. The people came in tuxes and gowns through a monsoon rain storm that would not let up. I was very happy to see old pals Bill and Tani Austin of the Starkey Hearing Foundation, which does reciprocal work with EJAF.  You can read all about the foundation and see why it’s so effective at www.ejaf.com. They issue regular reports about their many grants and proved to be incredibly effective. Elton and David, and foundation director Scott Campbell have done a great job with lots of transparency (unlike some other groups): http://ejaf.org/2012-grants/

PS I don’t know why, but for weeks the same Elton John song has been in my head. I think it’s because it was on the Pnau remix album. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyBJoj1zK_4