South Pasadena Care Center: Privacy Violations Found - CA
That tablet, inspectors found, was being controlled remotely from someone's house.
During a complaint inspection at South Pasadena Care Center on September 2, 2025, inspectors documented that a family member identified in the report as RP 1 was turning on a tablet inside a shared resident room from his home, activating a camera that captured the entire room. The camera ran continuously. Residents were on it. So was staff.
The woman, identified as Resident 3, has Parkinson's disease, an anxiety disorder, and dementia. She needs substantial help with toileting, dressing, transferring from her bed, and getting in and out of the shower. When an inspector spoke with her that morning at 10:57, she said she wanted nothing to do with RP 1 or the other resident the family member was visiting remotely. She said RP 1 talked too much. The light from the tablet stayed on around the clock. She couldn't sleep. She had a headache.
"She just kept quiet," the inspection report noted.
The room held at least three residents. RP 1 was remotely monitoring Resident 1, who was apparently a relative. But the camera didn't limit itself to one bed. A certified nursing assistant, identified as CNA 1, told inspectors she could see all three residents on the monitor whenever the tablet was active. She could see herself.
"It makes them feel weird," CNA 1 said, "the feeling of being watched all the time. Residents felt weird and invaded their privacy."
CNA 1 confirmed that RP 1 controlled the tablet from outside the facility and would turn it on remotely, repeatedly. The camera wasn't hidden, exactly, but it wasn't consented to either, not by the other residents sharing that room, not by the staff walking in to provide care.
A licensed vocational nurse, identified as LVN 2, was direct about it when inspectors asked. "It was not okay to have a camera inside the residents' room," she said, "because of privacy issues for residents and roommates."
The facility had written policies that said exactly that. Its privacy policy, dated April 2023, stated that residents would be examined and treated in a manner that maintains their privacy, that curtains and closed doors would be used during personal care, and that privacy would be maintained during toileting, bathing, and other hygiene activities. A separate policy on tablet use in rooms, updated in January 2025, stated that Wi-Fi access was for communication and recreation, and that unauthorized photos and videos were prohibited.
Neither policy stopped what was happening in that room.
Resident 3's cognitive impairment is classified as severe on the Minimum Data Set assessment, meaning she has significant difficulty making decisions for herself. She needed help with nearly every physical task. She was sharing a room with a camera she hadn't agreed to, operated by someone she said she wanted nothing to do with, and she responded the way many vulnerable people in institutional settings do: she said nothing. She just kept quiet and tried to sleep through the light.
The inspection cited the violation at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, with some residents affected. That classification sits near the lower end of CMS's harm scale. It does not capture what it means to be a woman with dementia and anxiety who cannot control her own environment, cannot turn off a light, cannot stop being watched, and lies awake with a headache because someone miles away keeps switching on a camera in her room.
She told the inspector she doesn't want to deal with them.
She doesn't have a lot of options.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for South Pasadena Care Center from 2025-09-02 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 19, 2026 · Our methodology
SOUTH PASADENA CARE CENTER in SOUTH PASADENA, CA was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 2, 2025.
That tablet, inspectors found, was being controlled remotely from someone's house.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.