Sheriff Says Patients at Assisted Living Facility Abandoned

By Bay City News

Alameda County sheriff's deputies removed more than a dozen patients from an assisted living facility in Castro Valley Saturday after it was determined that they had been "abandoned" there by the owners and staff, a department spokesman said this evening.

The Sheriff's Office was called this afternoon to the facility on Apricot Street, which appears to be listed variously as Valley Springs Manor, Valley Manor Community Care Home or Valley Manor Residential Care, after a medical call, Sgt. J.D. Nelson said.

Responding paramedics became concerned after they found that most of the staff had left and only a skeleton crew remained, Nelson said. In addition, the state Department of Social Services had posted a notice on the door stating that the facility was to be closed on Oct. 24th, Nelson said.

Nelson said the patients were elderly, some bedridden or in wheelchairs. Sheriff's Office officials are searching now for the owners of the facility, Nelson said. Calls to a Department of Social Services spokesman have not been returned.