Eyewitness News has learned the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into Kern Valley Hospital in Mt. Mesa. We made this discovery after a concerned hospital employee contacted our tip line saying its about time a criminal investigation was launched.

Our tipster is a current employee at the hospital. She wishes to remain anonymous so we will call her Jackie. She says she has witnessed the appalling treatment of elderly patients on a regular basis. In our investigation, we also learned it's not the first time the Kern Valley Hospital has been investigated. Back in 2005, the California Department of Health services found some violations in the way its elderly patients were being treated.

This time around neither the Department of Justice or the hospital will tell Eyewitness News specifically what they are investigating. "Its not fair for these family members to think their loved ones died of a disease process when in actuality they were murdered, "said Jackie.

Jackie says during a six-month period back in 2005 the director of nurses who is no longer employed by the hospital routinely drugged almost every one of the 60 or so elderly residents of the hospitals skilled nursing facility. "Basically she just put these people on these medicines, and they would just become zombies they couldn't talk or move," says Jackie.

Jackie also tells Eyewitness News she has no doubt at least eight of those patients died because of those drugs. She says they were given either a drug called respiradol or depacot which are bothanti-seizure drugs, despite her claim that none of the residents were having seizures.

She also claims the director of nurses just wanted them to be submissive. The California Department of Health Services did investigate the possible overdosing of elderly patients back in January of 2005. They found conclusive evidence of patients therapies had been changed without patients consent or of their families consent.

Bob Jamison is the current chair of the hospital board of directors.
" There were some issues during the time she was here and she was released, " said Jamison. Jamison would only say the director of nurses in question is no longer employed at the hospital and those practices are no longer happening.

He says the Department of Health Services has given them nothing but glowing reviews ever since their last investigation. He says they are cooperating with the current Department of Justice investigation, but he won't say if the DOJ is investigating those past overdosing claims.

"Its hard to say but if the DOJ is investigating one has to assume that they are looking into to the matter and they will have to make judgment," said Jamison. Jackie admits there hasn't been any overdosing that she knows of currently, but says the employees of the hospital are overworked and understaffed. A problem she says could lead to even more patient abuse.