Nursing home in Oakland allegedly drugged residents to stop him from wandering; death occurred soon after

Alando Williams, who for years sold the Street Spirit newspaper in front of the Berkeley Bowl supermarket on Oregon Street, was admitted to the Brookdale Wellness nursing home in Oakland in December 2022. Less than a month later, he died at the age of 64.

Now his daughter is suing the Fruitvale Avenue facility and its owners, claiming that the drugs used to keep Williams from wandering contributed to his death.

The Berkeley native suffered from leukemia and mild cognitive impairment and needed help with daily living and fall prevention, according to the lawsuit filed by his daughter, Kyomi Williams, in Alameda County Superior Court late last month.

Brookdale staff knew Williams had a “tendency to wander” and said he wanted to leave the facility, according to the lawsuit against the facility and its owner, Shlomo Rechnitz. Five days after he was admitted, Williams left the building, the lawsuit says. His daughter was called and found him in a nearby crosswalk, according to the lawsuit.

Rechnitz, who owns numerous nursing homes in California, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Instead of developing a plan to prevent Williams from wandering off and keeping him from falling, Brookdale staff began giving him the sedative Ativan and the powerful painkiller morphine to keep him “like a prisoner in need of chemical restraints,” according to the lawsuit.

The facility’s staff – allegedly overworked and undertrained to keep costs low and profits high – routinely administered morphine and Ativan to Williams without consulting his doctor, as required by state regulations, the lawsuit says. The overdose of the drugs caused complications such as disorientation, confusion, loss of balance and a tendency to fall, the lawsuit says.

Although the facility knew Williams was at significant risk of a life-threatening fall, it failed to create an effective prevention plan and he died a few days after the fall, the lawsuit says.

“As a result of these failures, Mr. Williams suffered untold pain and suffering and ultimately died,” the lawsuit states.

The death certificate lists leukemia and cardiac arrest as the cause of death. But his daughter’s lawyer, Ed Dudensing, said that if the case goes to trial, a doctor specializing in geriatric care will testify that the administration of morphine and Ativan was “a significant factor in death.”