Polk County’s public hospital is suing a Granger nursing home, saying the nursing home dumped a brain-damaged patient on the hospital and refused to take him back.The hospital, Broadlawns Medical Center, says in its lawsuit that Granger Nursing and Rehabilitation Center transferred Edward Weatherman to Broadlawns in October 2008. He remained there until he died more than six months later.The nursing home denies wrongdoing.The Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals has heard increasing reports about nursing homes transferring patients to hospitals, then refusing to take them back. A department spokesman indicated the agency is looking into the allegation against the nursing home, which already is on a federal watch list of homes with histories of problems.An independent advocate for patients said incidents like the one that allegedly happened at Broadlawns are becoming more common amid a shortage of proper facilities for Iowans with serious disabilities or mental disorders.”This has really been a huge issue in this state,” said Sylvia Piper, executive director of Iowa Protection and Advocacy Services.Weatherman was debilitated by brain damage from an accident four years before his death in May 2009 at age 56. Broadlawns’ lawsuit says the nursing home sent him to the taxpayer-supported hospital for stabilization after he “suffered an episode of dementia and combativeness.”Nursing-home employees said they would take him back after his condition improved, but they refused to do so, the lawsuit alleges.Christopher Jannes, a lawyer for the nursing home, said the lawsuit’s claims are false. “The resident in question was appropriately transferred to Broadlawns, in accordance with the orders from the resident’s physician, and the same physician felt that the resident’s readmission to Granger posed a risk to the safety and welfare of the residents who resided there,” he said in an e-mailed statement.Broadlawns’ lawsuit, filed last month in Polk County District Court, contends a hospital is an inappropriate place for a patient such as Weatherman to spend more than six months. Weatherman’s sister agreed.Lora Weatherman of Waukee said in an interview that her brother’s problems began when he was struck by a car while crossing a Des Moines street at night in 2004. He suffered brain damage that left him forgetful, she said. For example, she said, “he always thought I was my mom, because I looked like her.” He would become angry when she told him she was his sister.Weatherman said her brother went to several facilities, including one in Oklahoma, before winding up at the Granger nursing home in early 2008. She said he seemed to get good care there, but the administration apparently wasn’t satisfied with payments from Medicaid and Medicare, public insurance plans that covered his costs.Several times during his stay at the Granger nursing home, Edward Weatherman needed to go to a hospital to have his medications adjusted. His sister said he normally went to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, which is a private facility. But then nursing-home staff members told her they were sending him to Broadlawns, a public hospital.”I said, ‘What? Why is he going to Broadlawns?’ ” she said. “They didn’t really have an answer.”Lora Weatherman said she wanted her brother to go to Mercy because his records were there. She said the nursing home overruled her wishes, even though she was his legal guardian.She said Broadlawns staff members called her about a week later and said that her brother was ready to return to the nursing home, but that the nursing home wouldn’t take him.”I went to the nursing home, and no one would talk to me,” she said. By the time she got there, the staff had his belongings packed, she said. A janitor helped her carry them to her car.Lora Weatherman said her brother spent most of his last months in Broadlawns’ psychiatric wing, even though he didn’t have psychiatric problems. She was glad to hear this week that the hospital was suing the nursing home for its actions.”People shouldn’t be treated like that,” she said.Piper, the patient advocate, said she’d heard hospital administrators complain about nursing homes dumping difficult cases on them, but she’d never heard of lawsuits being filed over the practice.Piper said such situations often come up when nursing-home administrators believe their facilities are ill-equipped to handle some residents. “It could very well be there was no other place for such a patient to go, so the nursing home said, ‘Let’s just take him to the hospital. They’ll take him.’ “David Werning, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, said finances provide one of the main motives for nursing homes to transfer patients to hospitals. Insurance payments don’t always cover the actual cost of caring for people with complicated problems. He said he hadn’t heard of other lawsuits being filed in such cases, but he wasn’t surprised to hear that a hospital had become frustrated enough to take the matter to court.Werning said nursing homes may only discharge residents for one of three reasons: if the patients can’t pay for their care; if the patients become violent; or if the patients’ symptoms deteriorate beyond the facility’s ability to care for them.However, he said, it’s usually inappropriate for a nursing home to send a patient to a hospital, then refuse to take the person back.The Inspections and Appeals Department can fine nursing homes for inappropriately discharging patients. Werning said he couldn’t comment on whether a formal complaint had been filed in this case.We are aware of the situation and we are dealing with it,” he said, adding that any state sanctions would be made public.Broadlawns’ lawsuit says the nursing home broke state and federal laws governing patient transfers. The suit asks for $76,000 in reimbursement for its costs, plus punitive damages to prevent such behavior in the future.The nursing home’s Texas-based owner, Preferred Care Partners Management Group, and a related Texas firm, Pinnacle Health Facilities XVII, filed papers this month asking that the case be transferred to federal court.Broadlawns’ lawsuit doesn’t list a cause of death for Edward Weatherman, and it doesn’t say the nursing home’s actions contributed to the death.A Broadlawns spokeswoman said hospital leaders could not remember filing any similar lawsuits in the past