KRDO investigates complaint of abuse at Aspen Living Center

Complaints of abuse, poor care, and neglect at Aspen Living Center in Colorado Springs continue to pour into our newsroom.

“A person shouldn’t have to die early because of bad care,” said Mike Murphy, who lost his wife Judy of 17 years while she was being cared for at Aspen.

“Judy, I really miss you, I really do,” Murphy said as he stared at their wedding photo. Murphy said doctors expected Judy’s stay to be temporary, six weeks tops, following her hip replacement surgery. But, it turned into nine months.

“They just weren’t doing things right,” said Murphy. “It wasn’t clean, she wasn’t getting any rehab, she wasn’t able to take showers.”

Judy eventually died of pneumonia.

Murphy is convinced it’s a result of what he considers “neglect and poor care” provided to his wife.

“She was not taken care of like she should’ve been taken care of,” he said.

According to documents filed to the state, Murphy isn’t alone.

Eighteen complaints, ranging from physical, verbal, or sexual abuse, have been filed in 2019 alone. Five of those have led to state investigations.

In addition, Medicare ranks this facility “much below average” for health inspections.

Our team went to Aspen Living Center to speak with the facility administrator Katherine Leneave for a comment, but we were escorted off the property. We also called several times, but only received an email response stating:

“Aspen has been working diligently to continue to improve the care and services it provides to the residents it has a privilege to serve,” Leneave wrote.

But it never answered the obvious question: what’s being done now? Are conditions improving?

We spoke with Randy Kuykendall, the director of the health facilities division with the Colorado Health Department.

His team last visited Aspen Living Center on May 22.

“There were deficiencies of significance, we obviously immediately dealt with those,” Kuykendall said. “The facility did take immediate steps to begin mitigation.”

We asked how the state will continue to provide oversight to make sure conditions improve.

“This facility is required to provide us with weekly reports of a variety of indicators that our team then reviews immediately,” said Kuykendall.

There was speculation Aspen Living Center may be required to enter into a federal program that requires additional inspection and oversight, but that decision won’t be made for another year.

If you have had a similar situation with Aspen and need help, email Stephanie directly at: Stephanie.Sierra@KRDO.com.