Elder-abuse probe led to unlicensed ALF, Gables doctor
Bed sores on an elderly woman led to a $15,069 fine for a Coral Gables doctor who had been charged with elder neglect with great bodily harm in Monroe County court.
The fine is part of Dr. Raul Tamayo’s settlement with the Florida Department of Health. The department said Tamayo not only knew about an unlicensed assisted living facility in Key Largo with an unlicensed caregiver, but that he treated patients there.
Amultiagency investigation accuses Tamayo, 59, of much more than that.
A 2017 arrest warrant said Tamayo partnered with that unlicensed caregiver, Amarilys Maristan, in operating two unlicensed ALFs. One was in a Plantation Key house, the warrant said, the other was in a Key Largo trailer 12 miles away, both filled with incontinent patients with dementia, urinary tract infections and bed sores. “Investigators discovered Dr. Tamayo not only did not provide appropriate medical care for his patients at the facility, but the care giver [Maristan] also gave false information to investigators about Dr. Tamayo’s house call visits and medical care provided to the elderly at the facility.”
The criminal charge of neglect of an elderly or disabled person with great bodily harm against Tamayo was dismissed in August 2019. Maristan still faces two counts of the same the charge in Monroe County court.
The Department of Health Administrative Complaint against Tamayo, a licensed doctor in Florida since October 1987, said a woman identified as “R.V.” showed up at Mariner’s Hospital in Tavernier on Nov. 29 2016 with Stage 3 bed sores.
“Medical staff reported the victim was covered in urine and some bleeding and the wounds had infection,” the probable cause statement said.
She also “suffered from malnutrition.”
These signs of possible elder abuse got Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Department of Children and Families involved.
They found that R.V. had been living in an unlicensed ALF with Tamayo as her physician for six months. She’d been one of nine patients Tamayo had treated in the previous 11 months, the Department of Health complaint said. But in R.V.’s case, Tamayo, “did not treat Regla for bed sores, which resulted in Stage 3 bed sores,” the probable cause statement said.
She died after being transported to Homestead Hospital on Nov. 30, 2016.
The probable cause statement put the unlicensed ALFs at 173 Ocean Dr. in Plantation Key and 8 Ave. B in Key Largo.
“Investigators discovered no form of medical equipment (breathing treatments, blood pressure cuffs, prescribed medication) inside the illegal facility,” the PC statement says.
After the ALFs were closed, the PC statement says, investigators found another woman with pneumonia and Parkinson’s Disease. But none of Tamayo’s medical records say he treated her for either ailment.
As for the rest of Tamayo’s Department of Health punishment besides the fine, he has to sit through either a five-hour course in risk management or eight hours of Board of Medicine disciplinary hearings.