Yuba Radojkovich dubbed "The Black Snake" by the Residents
THIS IS FROM THE MOUTH OF 2 FORMER BOARD MEMBERS, BOTH ARE VERY RESPECTED BUSINESS OWNERS IN FRESNO, CALIFORNIA, EMPLOYEES (PAST AND PRESENT)
Yuba Radajkovich, has been at the California Home for the Aged dba California Armenian Home for over 35 years. In 2005 the board fed up with Yuba and her demoralizing of the home "retired" her out. A company was hired to manage the nursing home, and there was a short fall of funds to the tune of over $100,000. At the end of 2006, board member JS-M called Yuba who was at that time living in San Diego and working at an Emmanuel Nursing Home and panicked- pleaded with her to come back and straightened out the money situation. The shortfall, according to their state ombudsman Frank Kormazian was because of mis billings to California State MediCaid. shame shame.
Yuba had already ran the nursing home down before she left and was making a concerned effort to remove Armenian employees from any places of employment other than cleaning the floors. Yuba chased out all the good Armenian nurses (there are many Great Armenian Surgical Nurses and Nurse Practioners) that will not work there or are being paid better wages at the Community Hospital of Central California. Yuba also drove out any Armenian Physicians as Medical Director and decided to only answer to Armenians on the board, who largely leave after serving on the board 2 years because of politics. 2 pharmacists that are very respected were on the board but will not go near the home and cringe when they see Yuba show up at an occasional Armenian funeral.
Yost and Webb, hates going near the place but offers support for the old time Armenian families that might be in the California Armenian Home. But that is rare now Yuba is racist and turns away Armenians unless they have money. But prefers the guaranteed billing of MediCAID, that is over $70,000 a year per resident.
There are 150 beds in the Skilled Nursing and Residential section, and approximately 14 are Armenian, 2 Greek and that is it. Yet Yuba still wants to exploit the Armenian name in hopes of getting more donations $$ from the older Armenians that may have relatives in there. The Board is comprised of 1 family and a few friends, one that got elected has both his parents in there and JS-M and both her cousins are on the board, as the Bagdasarian clan original donated the land over 50 years and their Aunt C, (and Mother) is still in the home where she has a private room that has been re decorated, as JS-M tries to convince people that "everyone is treated the same" The other alarming issues besides their Income Tax Returns and the expenditures for the AACL building and upgrades for outer appearances is the numerous nursing home and medical web sites that Yuba refers to herself as a Physician with an M.D. (Medical Doctor) title. This is being looked at by the State licensing board, but Yuba is shifty and claims she is going to retire and that they "need me" Well this could be true as none of the board members want to operate the place and work there beyond showing up for board meetings and "if" they know someone in there visiting with them.
Yuba returned in 2007 after the money shortfall, and made it her first business to oust the person who was acting as an assistant administrator and part of the recreational duties. She was a very sweet, very well loved by the residents and college graduate in public administration and organization. Yuba forced PS with so much stress, backstabbing and mean spirited attitude that PS quit, but did have a case in employment abuse, but chose not to persue it because she had made friends with the residents and they loved her and still talk about her to this day. Yuba made herself a sweet deal of $150,000 salary with a $20,000 bonus for passing audits. So far they pass the annual audits but have been fined and cited for many violations from excessive UTIs, to malnurishment and also an outbreak of MRSA and Shingles from cross contamination of resident's clothes that they are forever losing and stealing. Yuba set out to destroy the nursing home, and kicked all the Armenian supporters out that were left as many had left on their own. Many of us have heard first had Yuba yell at the employees, with her screeching voice and thick Croatian accent. If you check your history books, the Croatians sided with the Nazi troops, we were told by someone that knows Yuba very well that her father was a Nazi sympathizer, (no surprise here)
As a result the donations are much lower than 10 years ago and will continue to declne, as there is no connection to the Armenian community except for the "Blessing of Grapes" the churches have on the grounds in August. But we are told the churches grow tired of paying a fee of $4,000 to use the grounds for this and would sooner have it at the Armenian Community Center (where we have moved our other functions) AACL(Armenian American Citizen League Building) membership is down and the hospital uses the AACL building for exercise to include the upgrade of the building in the MediCAID/MediCARE budget but in fact the recent facelift of $500,000 should not be any patient funds that are used on the AACL building
Today, Yuba doesn't use any Armenian pharmacists or Rehab, (Rehab L and J Telamansic- her Croatian buddies that are paid $978,000 per year. No Armenian Attorney wants anything to do with the place (and there is an abundance of them) , so they have an old worn out Attorney that is 76 years old and would never admit himself into the home. This attorney is so stupid he didn't understand what Hippa violations were. In fact, the nursing facilty was still having visitors illegally sign in with the name of the patient a big "NO NO" and violation of patient privacy that was halted by the federal government. Yuba is 67 and will be 68 years old in December 2013 she is tired but knows how to milk the system and abuse some of the good workers that have been there 20 years. They are too afraid to leave and mostly avoid Yuba.
The newer workers are largely immigrants from India, Mexico and Philippines, 3 are Armenian (1 is from Iran) and are single mothers....all desperate for money and a job so they suck it up and Yuba hires people that have not had an easy time finding employment and holds their job over their heads in fear, it is a sad place to work. Now they have added a guard station because there have been so many car break ins, and other thefts. Quite a few people dump off dogs and cats on the grounds, there have been adorable kitten litters that the residents feed and visit with, but Yuba has the SPCA hall off the kittens (witch) Some of the workers are very negligent and have openly made what appeared to be drug purchases in the parking lot. No one wants to get involved or say anything as Yuba wants 100% full control, except the money is running out as far as donations go.
Most of the elderly are opting for home health care as it is proven that people are happy and healthier in their own homes. There are 3 home health care agencies operated by Armenians that have a thriving business. Additionally, there are more newer state of the art facilities being built or completed on the more desirable north end of Fresno: FairWinds, Carrington Point, San Joaquin Gardens, Willow Creek, Nazerene House all great facilities but not without their share of problems.
As Yuba continues to down grade the place, and not pay the RNAs more than $12.00 an hour (they are the ones doing the large portion of the work) The RNAs are treated unfairly doing the bulk of the work for the LVN/LPN and a few sprinkling of RNs that largely oversee certain duties/proceedures- that LVN/LPNs are uncapable of doing. Even the RNs are underpaid at Nursing Homes, the head of Nursing barely makes much more than $65,000 a year. But as the system goes, once you are locked into a nursing home employment it is difficult to leave. The head of staff development is a slug named Jan Vawter who has also been at CAH for over 30 years with no where to go. Jan became an RN under the old "bridge" standards from an LVN with an online college course. She is a graduate of Clovis Adult School and prefers using Clovis Adult School for hiring and for some of the externing work. There is nursing students in there all the time. Getting hours required and not paid. (free labor). Finding workers for CAH isn't hard, its KEEPING them that is the challenge. There are a few employees out of the 100 that have been there longer than 15 years that are outstanding, but they are holding on for retirement, then they are GONE.
Hospitals don't give any more referrals and neither do the churches who largely compete for the Armenian donation money. Holy Trinity just had a $1 million face lift to the Banquet Hall, there is no way that they will allow CAH to keep that money. The Der Hayrs (Priests) of the churches make a usual 1 day a week visit, but find there is no Armenians to minister to and feel it is an explotiaton of the word "Armenian" and should be renamed the parent name which is "California Home for the Aged" and take any reference to ethnic background off. Since the nursing home largely exists on government funding via Health and Human Services, they should take off all references to "Armenian" because of accepting tax supported funds.
This downslide of the facilty donations / funds started seriously when Yuba came back in the picture but is declining every year. There are sadly people in there that don't want to be there and are terribly depressed and on anti-psychotic drugs (nursing homes are notorous for drugging up elderly patients) many have no family or if they have family sadly...no one is visiting them. Most of the staff become their family. There was over 4 falls last year that were serious enough that the ambulance came out.
St. Mary's Home Health Care is one of the best we recommend you get estimates and meet their staff, that might be in your home. You can always adjust who it is or increase / decrease hours. There is also a program via the County that will pay a family member to watch over you. If you must put a family member in one of these Human Warehouses, watch everything they do, arrive at different times and different shifts, observe any marks on the body, weight change, fever, non compliance with putting hearing aides in, cleanliness of the staff, theft of items. Know good attorneys and physicians.
This is Jan Vawter, who has been groveling around the California Armenian Home for some 35 years and in 2006 finally became an RN via Excellisor College online. Woo Hoo. Jan would leave in a heartbeat if she could find another job, she is eligible for retirement in 20 months.
