LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- An employee at a Pasadena, Calif., mental health facility filed a whistle-blower lawsuit alleging the hospital provided "minimal, substandard care" to patients.

The suit was filed last year in U.S. District Court and sealed but newly made public.

It is the most recent in a string of complaints concerning care at Aurora Las Encinas Hospital, a psychiatric facility treating patients seeking help for alcoholism and drug problems, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

The 34-page suit filed on behalf of employee Shelby Eidson, a mental health worker at the facility since 2005, names the hospital, parent company signature Healthcare Services and owner Dr. Soon K. Kim along with other defendants and alleges the hospital's treatment of patients fell short of federal standards thereby violating its agreement with Medicare and Medicaid.

Three patients died within a five-month period in 2008 and since then it was warned twice it could lose federal funding, the Times said.

One of the allegations mentioned in the suit and in government investigations include the deaths of two patients being treated for substance abuse in which case workers falsified logs to show they had been checked every 15 minutes, government reports said.

Kim was the subject of another whistle-blower lawsuit in 2006. He and other defendants agreed to pay the U.S. government $1.73 million to settle accusations of Medicare fraud, the Times reported.

Eric Rose, a spokesman for Las Encinas, called the claims false, saying he had "every confidence that we will prevail in this meritless lawsuit. We stand proudly behind our patient care."