Death caused by falls lead to lawsuit

The St. Clair Record had an article about the recent lawsuit filed for a resident who died after the nursing home allowed the elderly woman to fall multiple times causing her death.  Dora Haskins-Bond lived at Eldercare Inc., doing business as Calvin Johnson Care Center, from December 2004 until July 31.   During her stay at the center, Haskins-Bond fell on July 7, sustaining fractures to her left femur and right knees.   Because Haskins-Bond had previously fallen several times while staying at Calvin Johnson, the home should have known of her susceptibility to falls and fractures and done something to prevent the falls.

The center and its owners failed to provide adequate resources and monitoring for Haskins-Bond to prevent her from falling.  Because of her fall, Haskins-Bond incurred substantial medical costs, endured substantial pain and suffering in her body and mind and suffered disability, disfigurement and an aggravation to her pre-existing health conditions.

In addition to Calvin Johnson, Eldercare's administrative manager, Steven Wolf, and Prudence Wolf, who had an ownership interest in the company, are included as defendants in the suit.

 

 

Death caused by fall leads to lawsuit

The Northwest Herald had an article about a lawsuit involving the neglect of a resident that led to a fall that caused her death.  The wrongful death lawsuit against a Chicago nursing home, Sacred Heart Home, states that the nursing home failed to prevent the fall that led to the resident’s death.

Kathleen Koch, died after suffering from a broken back, head injuries and paralysis after she fell in a stairwell at the nursing home. The fall happened Dec. 21, and she died eight months later at 61 years old.

The case alleges that staff should have better supervised Koch because they knew she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and was at high risk for wandering and falls.  However, her room was not near a nurse’s station, and Koch was able to go into the stairwell unsupervised.

She was the type of resident that needs to be closely monitored and supervised which clearly was not done.  I am sure the nursing home will blame the resident and claim it was all her fault.

 

Fraud and eviction led to death

The Daily Journal of New Jersey had an article about a lawsuit filed against a facility that intentionally misled a resident by promising she could remain in the facility after she depleted her substantial personal savings, and then threatening her with eviction when she did. 

The family of the late May Elizabeth Hunish contends in the complaint that the threat of eviction from Maurice House was a factor in her death soon after she received the notice in June 2007. The  lawsuit echos the findings of an 18-month investigation by the state Office of the Public Advocate. The results prove that Assisted Living Concepts Inc. involuntarily discharged or threatened with discharge from the company's facilities several elderly residents like Hunish when they drained their personal savings and became eligible for Medicaid.

Wisconsin-based Assisted Living Concepts operates Maurice House and seven other assisted living facilities in New Jersey.

Ronald Chen, state public advocate, said that administrators at the facilities "failed to inform and misled some residents" about their policy for accepting Medicaid.   Chen said the problem was caused by a change in corporate policy at the company in 2006, in which it sought to increase profits by reducing its number of Medicaid residents.

The lawsuit was filed in state Superior Court on behalf of Todd and Warren Buirch, the executors of Hunish's estate.  Todd Buirch is Hunish's grandson and Warren Buirch is her son.  The lawsuit  accuses Assisted Living Concepts of consumer fraud, breach of contract and negligence. The lawsuit contends that officials at Maurice House made verbal promises to Hunish's family that she could remain in the facility once she depleted her personal savings and became eligible for Medicaid. But after Hunish did become eligible for Medicaid in March 2007 by spending her savings of $150,000, the facility informed her family that she'd have to move into an apartment at Maurice House with another resident or leave the facility.  Two months later, Hunish slipped and fell while she was unattended in her bathroom at Maurice House, shattering her femur. While she was hospitalized, her family told her about a discharge notice issued by Maurice House to her on June 12.

"She grew increasingly distraught and her will to live decreased," the lawsuit contends. "She constantly cried and expressed that life was no longer worth living."

Hunish died on June 16, 2007. She was 84.

Todd Buirch said in an interview Monday his family filed the lawsuit "to prevent any other parents or grandparents from having to go through this with Assisted Living Concepts. It's not about money; it's about stopping this. We want to change the way they do business. We don't want to see any more people being evicted."

 

 

 

British woman severly neglected

The British newspaper The Mirror had a shocking story about an elderly woman tragically abused and neglected.  She was found bed-bound, underfed, dehydrated and covered in ulcers.  She died after she was so badly neglected in a nursing home that horrific open wounds covered most of her body.

Gwendoline Hoar had painful pressure ulcers on her back, hips and feet.   She was in dreadful pain but managers at the private home refused to give her pain relief until the final two days of her life.  Two docotrs who visited Mrs Hoar and failed to help her have refused to co-operate with the coroner.

Two years after she died - no one has been arrested over her death.  Gwen's family now want a full inquiry. Son-in-law Gavin Langley said: "What happened was avoidable and dreadful. Someone has to be held to account. It's horrifying."

Gwen lived at home until the death of second husband Stan in 2004. He had been her teen sweetheart and they wed after first husband Cyril died. Gavin said: "They had 25 blissful, happy years. It was idyllic."

When Gwen developed dementia devoted Stan cared for her at home until his death. She went into one nursing home where she was well looked-after, but her condition got worse and she had to move to River Court. Both homes were paid for from savings.

Within four months of entering River Court she was close to death. After concerns were raised about the home, BUPA sent in skin expert Ann Moore, told the inquest into Mrs Hoar's death: "I found a frail little lady in her room who appeared quite undernourished.  She was very dehydrated. I could see she hadn't been turned frequently. In fact she hadn't been turned at all, according to the documentation."   Ms Moore found more wounds than listed in the notes. Some had dressings but others were open to infection. A specialist mattress to relieve sores had not been fitted properly so was of no benefit.

It was another month - and only after a visit from inspectors - before the local health trust was called in. Two district nurses who examined Gwen were shocked by her condition, which had got even worse. One said there were too many sores to list.   Some were found to be Grade 4 - the most serious - with skin and tissue split down to the bone. But instead of sending her to hospital doctors took the advice of a BUPA nurse that Gwen should be treated in the home.

The inquest heard that when they were urged to provide 24-hour pain relief for Gwen, managers "resisted" installing the equipment until two days before she died. A post-mortem found the sores were so painful they stopped Gwen moving, which led to pneumonia.

Coroner Graham Danbury said the care provided at the home was "seriously disturbing". 

Daniel Blake of Action on Elder Abuse said it was "a disgrace" no one had been held to account.

 

Employees take dignity away from residents.

The Fort Mill Times had an article about disgusting abuse of residents' rights including privacy and dignity.  Nursing home employees were taking pictures of residents on their cell phones attached songs with sexual lyrics and circulated them to other employees.  The nursing home in Lexington has been cited by state officials but no arrests have been made yet.   i do not understand how this could happen.  don't the employees have any shame at all.  

A citation issued against Bluegrass Care and Rehabilitation Center stated there was no indication the for-profit nursing home had trained staffers that using residents' pictures and/or recordings of a sexually exploitative nature were a form of abuse.  Do you really need to train them on something as simple as that.  Do they need training on simple respect and dignity.  This is outrageous.

 

Nursing home fails to supervise resident found on trian tracks

CBS2Chicago had a tragic story of a nursing home resident found on train tracks near the facility.  There is no excuse for this kind of neglect and lack of supervision.  The nursing home has been sued for negligence after a resident with dementia was discovered lying on train tracks and suffering from cold exposure eight hours after wandering off during a group field trip. McCauley suffered from various psychological and physical conditions, severe dementia and Alzheimer's disease and required full-time supervision by staff.

Wayne Marz, the guardian of Margaret McCauley, filed the suit in Cook County Circuit Court against Sunrise Senior Living Services, the Brighton Gardens Assisted Living of Orland Park and the home's Activity Director Debra Ann Adler, following the Dec. 2, 2007 incident that left the woman with significant injuries.

McCauley wandered away unnoticed and was found approximately eight hours later just one mile away, lying on train tracks with visible injuries she had suffered from falling down and from being exposed to cold temperatures for an extended amount of time.

The suit alleges Adler and the nursing home failed to properly monitor McCauley; failed to assess her risk of wandering off; failed to provide an adequate number of staff for residents and failed to ensure her safety.  The center also failed to take proper steps to ensure McCauley's safe return after discovering she was missing.

 

Nursing home fails to report missing resident for 2 days

I doubt that the facility even knew he was missing.  Staten Island Live had a story about a resident who walked away from the facility on Friday but the facility failed to either recognize that he was missing or failed to contact the police or his family for 48 hours.  This is outrageous but not a surprise knowing how short staffed most facilities are these days.

The man, identified as Richard Constable, 66, walked off the grounds of the 200-bed facility sometime Friday but staffers didn't call police until Sunday morning, when a therapist finally noticed his patient was missing a session.

"They felt they would get a better [police] response if they waited until Sunday," said Claudia Hutton, spokeswoman for the state Health Department that licensed the facility. "We were surprised by that. You call the police as soon as you realize a person is missing."  Hutton, of the Health Department, said Lakeside probably would be given a citation in the case, and called the response "inappropriate policy."  Probably?  Why not definitely?

Lakeside has drawn complaints from neighbors who say the residents there are publicly drunk, urinate on lawns and litter properties with trash and cigarette butts. But Anthony Caccamo, who lives across the street, said the patients aren't the problem.

"It's the staff; they're just nasty, miserable people," said Caccamo, 35. "They don't care."

 

Resident dies after falling down stairs

Brenham Banner-press had an article about the recent death of a nursing home resident who was not being properly supervised.  This is clear cut negligence and neglect but the article uses vague words to express a fatalistic attitude about the ability of staff to prevent accidents like this one.

An 86-year old man, reportedly suffering from dementia, rolled down a short flight of stairs in his wheelchair at Kruse Village retirement home here, suffering fatal injuries.  A resident died after the facility failed to protect him and allowed to fall down the stairs

The man was somehow able to leave the oversight of the nursing home attendants and go through at least one security door, eventually getting to the area where he suffered his injuries.  Somehow?  The facility failed to protect and supervise a demented resident and allowed him access to the stairs!

Because the man died from other than natural causes, his death is being investigated by police, who are saying unofficially that the death was almost surely an accident.  Accident?  So now negligent supervision and short staffing is an "accident".

Police say there is a very narrow timeline between the last time the wheelchair-bound man was seen by attendants and his time of death — 20 minutes or less.  How did they determine that?  From the nurses who failed this man and might get fired if they tell the truth?

They also say the alarm system Kruse Village uses to let them know if a patient has left a certain area was working and did perform as it was supposed to.  How did it work like it was supposed to if the man was able to go through without being noticed?


 

CNA arrested for negligent homicide and cover up

The Chattanooga Free Times Press had an article about the arrest of a nursing home employee who neglected and caused the death of a nursing home resident.   Walter Small is charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of Robert A. Young on Nov. 12, 2007.  The nursing home was almost successful covering this crime up.  The arrest was made in connection with the 2007 homicide of a cerebral palsy patient, a case that almost ended with no investigation into the victim’s unexpected death and his burial just days later in a pauper’s grave.

 A timeline of the case reveals it was Mr. Young’s family members who initially questioned the circumstances of his death, which took place while he was living at the Health Center at Standifer Place.  Authorities eventually exhumed Mr. Young’s body last summer, and the autopsy performed one year after his death indicated Mr. Young died of blunt force trauma to the head.

County Medical Examiner Frank King said he did not initially perform an autopsy because of representations made to him that the victim had fallen and fractured his skull as the result of a seizure. But medical records didn’t support that theory, Dr. King said, and Mr. Young’s sister, Rana Reynolds, would end up suing Standifer Place as well as the Tennessee Department of Human Services in November 2008, alleging that both were in “collusion” to “hide the death and burial” of Mr. Young.

According to the two lawsuits filed in Hamilton County Circuit Court, not only did a Standifer Place employee kill Mr. Young, but when family members called to check up on him, employees didn’t even tell the family he was dead for more than a month.  After Mr. Young’s death, “Standifer Place told each person, on each call, that (Mr. Young) was OK, and to come see him,” court documents state.

 

Lawsuit filed against Winchester Centre for Health and Rehabilitation

The Lexington Herald-Leader had an article about a recent lawsuit filed against a nursing home with a history of neglect and violations.  The facts behind the lawsuit suggest that the nursing home's failure to assess the respiratory condition of a 54-year-old man led to his death after a six-day stay.   The Winchester Centre for Health and Rehabilitation has faced numerous state and federal sanctions in the past two years and was threatened with the loss of Medicare and Medicaid funding.

On Jan. 25, 2008, William Baker was admitted to the nursing home.  The facility failed to assess and monitor Baker's respiratory condition or to suction him. Baker developed breathing problems and was transferred to a Lexington hospital where he died on Jan. 31, 2008.  "The lack of care and attention caused Mr. Baker to suffer in a most traumatic fashion and ultimately die," the lawsuit said.  The lawsuit also the said the facility "established staffing levels that created recklessly high nurse/resident ratios."

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of problems for the facility, which in 2008 received two type A citations — the most serious the state can give. One, in August, was for not calling a doctor when a man lost more than 87 pounds in 19 days. At the end of the 19 days, the man was found unresponsive and was taken to the hospital, according to the citation from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services

A second type A citation was issued Jan. 12 after a patient received the wrong dose of an anti-seizure medication for 40 days in November and December, an error that wasn't discovered until the patient suffered a seizure.  The facility didn't have a system to make sure that medications were administered properly, according to the Jan. 12 citation.

 

Novovirus hits SC nursing home

Carolinalive.com had an article about the recent outbreak of a highly contagious virus at a Murrells Inlet nursing home. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) reports as many as 75 people have suffered symptoms of norovirus at the NHC nursing home in Murrells Inlet.

The virus is a stomach flu and can be spread if infection controls are not in place and practiced among the staff in the nursing home.   This is of particular concern for the elderly -- as they can easily become dehydrated and can cause fatalities.

The nursing home is not releasing any information.  No visitors will be allowed until the virus is under control.
 

Life Care Center charged with manslaughter after neglecting a resident

Wickedlocal.com had a recent article about the wrongful death of a resident caused by the neglect and incompetence of the nursing home staff.  This death was clearly preventable if the facility was not understaffed and the employees were doing their jobs.

Julia McCauley was a resident who on the morning of Aug. 17, 2004, rolled her wheelchair unattended out the front door of the Life Care Center of Acton, and tumbled down a flight of stairs causing her death.  McCauley was not wearing a doctor-prescribed WanderGuard bracelet designed to set off an alarm and lock the doors if McCauley got too close to the exit.

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office believes that McCauley’s death could have been avoided had she been wearing her electronic bracelet and that the nursing home’s parent company, Life Care Centers of America, is culpable.

Of course, Life Care Center officials deny any wrongdoing and refuse to accept responsibility.  What ever happened to accountability?  Life Care Center is charged with manslaughter and neglect of a long-term care facility resident.   If convicted, the Tennessee-based corporation would only face a possible fine not to exceed $6,000.

Life Care operates more than 200 facilities in 28 states, including several that have come under scrutiny in the past.  In 2005, the company paid $2.5 million to resolve allegations of billing Medicaid and Medicare for services that were never provided or were useless to the residents of a Lawrenceville, Ga., facility.

The Acton facility in the past was fined $2,112 in the fall of 2005 and $11,147 in December 2006 for various deficiencies found during routine state checks. In July 2007, state and federal regulators imposed fines totaling more than $164,000 for deficiencies that jeopardized residents’ safety. But the fines were rescinded after the facility promised to correct the deficiencies.

 

 

 

 

Neglect and understaffing causes tragic death

The Chicago Tribune has had a series of articles about the tragic death of a nursing home resident who was unsupervised and allowed to wander away from the facility.  The articles are good although many questions remain unanswered.  See articles here, here, here, and here.  Below is a summary of what I believe has been found out thus far.

Sarah Wentworth -- who suffered from dementia -- was found in a snowbank outside The Arbor of Itasca the cold morning of Feb. 5.  She had been exposed to the elements for at least 90 minutes and more likely 5 hours. Wentworth was unable to leave her bed without assistance.   No one is sure how she could have left her room and the building without being noticed by staff.  Staff are required to do a bed check every two hours.  She was known by staff to be a wanderer and wore an ankle bracelet that reminded the staff.

Wentworth was wearing only a hospital gown when police arrived at the nursing home.  She had on an ankle bracelet that should have (and may have) triggered an alarm at the facility's nursing station when she passed through the first of two exit doors.   Inside the nursing station at The Arbor of Itasca is a handwritten note reminding staff that "if this buzzer sounds, staff must go out to the courtyard to check for a resident."

Nursing home staff members told Itasca police they checked the door to the courtyard when the alarm went off, but did not see anyone.   No mention of a polygraph test was noted.

Neglect and obstruction of justice charges may be filed against as many as four employees. Heidi Leon, a 23-year-old staff member on duty the night of the incident, was watching TV in a room adjacent to the nursing station when Wentworth exited a door and triggered the alarm.  She watched three straight episodes of "Dog The Bounty Hunter" and "shrugged off " an alarm that indicated a resident had wandered outside into near-zero conditions.  Instead of checking the courtyard as instructed, the staff member assumed someone "stepped outside to have a cigarette" and turned the alarm off "so it didn't distract her television program."

Tom Hendrix, an attorney for the nursing home, did not respond directly to the allegations but said that "policies and procedures were in place for the supervision and safety of residents, including an alarm system which was in working order." Hendrix did admit that some employees had been suspended.

Mr. Hendrix nor the nursing home employees can explain how she got outside.   She was unable to get out of bed on her own.  Although an alarm sounded at a secure door during the middle of the night when Wentworth left the building, no nursing home employee checked on her.   The outside temperature that morning was about 1 degree.

Heidi Leon was charged Tuesday with criminal neglect of a long-term-care facility resident, criminal neglect of an elderly person and obstruction of justice. If convicted, she faces up to 7 years in prison.

 

 

Woman allowed to freeze to death outside nursing home

MSNBC had an article about a resident who was unsupervised and was able to leave the facility unattended.  Authorities are investigating the death of the female resident.   Reports indicate that Dorotha Gifford apparently walked out of the Heartland of Woodridge home without any of the staff noticing.  Several hours passed before Gifford was discovered missing.  Employees searched the grounds and found her dead outside at about 2:30 p.m. Gifford was pronounced dead shortly after she was found.

Temperatures hovered only a few degrees from zero for  the day she was missing. The cause of death is mostly like exposure to the cold. 

The home is owned by HCR ManorCare.  They released a statement to the media refusing to accept responsibility.

The article does not mention if she was a known wanderer or if there were locks or alarms on the door.  It also doesn't mention how long she was missing or if the facility was properly staffed that day.  I hope there is an investigation and we find out some of the answers to these questions.

Peanut butter with salmonella given to nursing home residents

The Minneapolis Star Tribune had a tragic story about cancer survivor Shirley Mae Almer. The 72-year-old woman from Perham, Minn., had survived lung cancer surgery and radiation therapy on a brain tumor. Her family planned to bring her home from a Brainerd nursing home for Christmas.
Instead, she died Dec. 21, and her children and grandchildren spent the holidays in grief.

They soon got a second shock. Minnesota health investigators discovered that the nursing home's peanut butter was tainted by a strain of salmonella that has been making people sick across the country. Almer's daughter Ginger Lorentz said she served her mother peanut butter toast a week before she died. She said she prepared it in the nursing home, using the facility's peanut butter.

Now, 503 people in 43 states have been infected by salmonella linked by DNA fingerprinting to peanut butter produced in a Georgia plant. Eight people have died, including two other Minnesota nursing home residents. About 200 products containing suspect peanut butter have been recalled. Among the first recalled were 5-gallon peanut butter containers like those sold to nursing homes.

The family on Monday sued the manufacturer, Peanut Corp. of America, of Lynchburg, Va., and the distributor, King Nut Co. of Solon, Ohio., alleging negligence, said Fred Pritzker, a Minneapolis attorney representing the family.

Salmonella typically causes abdominal pain, nausea -- symptoms they say their mother suffered -- diarrhea and fever. The infection can be fatal in young, elderly or frail people.

Shirley Almer was a mother of five and businesswoman. She retired five years ago and was found to have lung cancer in 2007. Yet her surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical Center was pronounced a success. In June she took a Florida vacation with her two sons, two daughters and four grandchildren. When she returned from the trip, she suffered a seizure that sent her back to the U, where doctors treated a brain tumor with radiation. She spent two months in the hospital. 

By October, she moved in with her daughter in Brainerd and spent weekends at her home in Perham. Then came another setback, a urinary tract infection that sent her to a transitional unit in Good Samaritan just after Thanksgiving. It was meant to be temporary, to regain strength, her family said. "So we would bring her snacks and cookies and things like that," said Lorentz. "They had a little kitchenette in her wing and she liked peanut butter toast. So I made her peanut butter toast for two days in a row."

The family had planned to take her home Dec. 22. Yet the day before that, she became gravely ill.

By then, the state Health Department was searching for clues to a salmonella outbreak that had struck elsewhere in the country and turned up in Minnesota in late November. During such outbreaks, state investigators routinely perform specialized tests on stool samples from sick people and interview victims or relatives about what they've been eating.

Nine days after her mother died, Lorentz said she got a call from a state epidemiologist. It was the first time that she had heard that her mother had been tested for salmonella and found to be infected with the strain afflicting people around the country. "She asked about chicken, and she asked about peanut butter," said Lorentz. "I said, 'Yes, I used to make her peanut butter toast.'"

Dr. Kirk Smith, who heads the department's foodborne disease investigative unit, said identifying victims at a long-term care facility -- as a policy, the department doesn't identify institutions or victims by name -- and testing its peanut butter were the keys to identifying the source of the outbreak. A series of recalls soon began, first of the bulk peanut butter and then of products made from it, including cookies, crackers, cereal, candy, ice cream and pet food.

Federal officials say the contamination was traced back to the Peanut Corp. of America processing plant in Blakely, Ga., which was shut down.

None of this happened in time to help Clifford Tousignant, 78, who died Jan. 12 in another Brainerd nursing home operated the Good Samaritan Society, a nonprofit based in Sioux Falls, S.D. His son, Marshall Tousignant, said he also served his father peanut butter at night. His father, already weakened by diabetes, suffered continuous diarrhea for more than two weeks before he died, and tests linked his infection to the salmonella outbreak, his son said.

 

Patient loses 87 lbs in 19 days

Nutrition is the most important aspect of a nursing home resident's case.  Any weight loss makes a patient more susceptible to illness, infection, and death.  I have read a couple of articles about a nursing home patient who lost 87 pounds in 19 days and I still do not understand how it could happen and why it is not considered criminal neglect.  

State and federal agencies have filed numerous sanctions against the Winchester Centre for Health and Rehabilitation since August, when a patient lost more than 87 pounds in 19 days and the nursing home failed to call a doctor.  At the end of the 19 days, the patient was found unresponsive and was taken to the hospital.  The unnamed medical director at the Clark County nursing home is quoted (with the understatement of the year) as telling an investigator that the patient did not receive good care: "It was not a good experience during his three-week stay, and I think he suffered for it."

The lack of response is amazing.  The Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is threatening to pull the facility's funding in February and has warned that the facility could be fined up to $6,050 a day if conditions don't improve, according to correspondence between the nursing home and the federal agency.  I can't believe they didn't shut this place down immediately and determine where the money went that was supposed to go to the residents.

Officials with Kindred Healthcare in Louisville, which owns the Winchester nursing home, say the facility has no plans to close. If the funding is cut off, the patients who receive Medicaid and Medicare will be sent to other facilities.  There are 166 patients at the facility.

The nursing home did not contact a physician or monitor a patient being treated for swelling and other problems. The patient lost more than 87 pounds, dropping from 197 pounds to 109.4 pounds, in 19 days When the patient was admitted to a hospital, a physician there told state investigators, "I would never want anyone to lose weight that fast. That is too fast."

A second Type A citation was issued Jan. 12, after a patient received the wrong dosage of an anti-seizure medication for 40 days in November and December, an error that wasn't discovered until the patient suffered a seizure. The patient was supposed to have received a daily dose of 450 milligrams of extended-release capsules by mouth, but the nursing home staff gave 400 milligrams through a feeding tube, which altered the medication's effectiveness. The facility didn't have a system to make sure that medications were administered properly, according to the Jan. 12 citation.

Records of state inspections and investigations show that physicians were not notified when patients' conditions deteriorated and doctors' orders weren't followed for patients with serious medical conditions. Inspections since 2007 also have turned up problems with cleanliness, disrepair and the temperature of food served to patients. 
In one case in September, the nursing home did not notify a physician when a patent's pressure ulcer worsened and the patient had to be hospitalized as a result. The physician told state investigators that the problem should have been detected sooner and that the patient did not receive "the best of care" at the facility.

 

Nursing home business manager arrested for stealing

WSOCTV.com had an article about a Rock Hill, S.C. charged with stealing money from patients at the nursing home where she worked.   Melissa Kelly was the business manager at Magnolia Manor on Murrah Drive in Rock Hill. She has been charged with one count of forgery, and one count of elder exploitation.  Magnolia Manor is part of the chain of THI and Fundamental nursing homes.

Kelly was fired from her job last fall after an internal audit uncovered more than $65,000 of company checks that were forged and then cashed. "The more we dug, the more blatant it became," said detective David Hanoka who spent four months investigating the case.

Hanoka said dozens of nursing home patients lost money since April of 2006 without ever knowing it.  Many of the nursing home residents on Medicaid or Medicare have small trust accounts used for spending money. The money is often petty cash that's used for small day to day items. Those are the accounts police say were stolen from.

"This money was never distributed to the individuals it should've been distributed to," Hanoka said.

Instead, police believe Kelly forged and cashed the checks. Police said it's not clear how much of the missing $65,000 she is responsible for. Police focused their investigation on just 14 cases they say took place in 2008.

The state attorney general's office will continue the investigation, and prosecute the case.

Joy Patterson, the administrator at Magnolia Manor, told the media that the company was not ready to release a statement yet, but would soon.

Resident evicted days before Christmas

The Honolulu Advisor had a terrible story about a nursing home resident evicted and left at the emergency room of a hospital days before Christmas.  The 81-year-old woman was confined to a wheelchair wearing only a hospital gown.

Florence Ko told The Advertiser she had no idea what was happening and where she would be staying when she was taken from Nu'uanu Hale, where she had lived since July 2007.  "I wish someone (at the nursing home) had the courage to tell me what was going on," Ko said in a brief interview last week from her bed at the 'Aiea facility.

When she was left at Straub, Ko had no personal belongings except her purse, which contained less than $3 and her cell phone — but not the charger, according to members of her church who have been helping her.

The Department of Human Services, the agency that investigates elder abuse, called Nu'uanu Hale's actions inappropriate and was referring the matter to the Department of Health, which licenses Hawai'i nursing homes.

Nu'uanu Hale was one of six Hawai'i nursing homes last month to receive the poorest rating possible from the federal government in a newly created system for publicly assessing quality of care at the nation's roughly 16,000 homes. The nursing home received a single star out of a possible five.

First Unitarian members, who have been helping Ko in recent years as she became increasingly less mobile because of polio-related ailments, and the family have been trying to get Medicaid to cover Ko's long-term-care bills, just as the government insurance program does to some degree for income-eligible seniors, the church members said. Ko's application, however, has twice been rejected, they said. Even though she received regular income from Social Security and an annuity, the amount wasn't enough to cover her nursing-home tab. 

Church members said they were told Ko was taken to Straub to get treatment for an anxiety problem. While she was there, she used her cell phone, clearly upset about not knowing what was happening. But the line abruptly cut off during their conversation and the lay minister couldn't reach her friend after that.

Ko, an articulate, feisty woman with a head full of white hair and an occasional memory lapse, said she had thought her financial situation with Nu'uanu Hale was going to be resolved. Yet when she returned to her room after physical therapy on Dec. 17, her personal belongings had been piled on a gurney and people were cleaning her room, she said.

"To just kind of toss you out — that's it," she said. Later that day, Ko's belongings were placed under a tarp outside Nu'uanu Hale, where church members later retrieved them.

Because Ko's finances apparently did not allow her to qualify for Medicaid but were too little to cover her nursing-home tab, she is part of a growing "gap group" that increasingly will have a tough time affording the long-term care they need as they enter their 70s, 80s and 90s, experts say. 

 

Dehydration caused resident's death

Twincities.com had an article about a lawsuit filed by the family of a man so neglected by a Stillwater nursing home in Minneapolis that he had to be hospitalized for dehydration.  He died as a result of dehydration and malnutrition.  There is no excuse for this kind of neglect. How difficult is it to make sure residents have enough fluids to drink?

Dean Cole died Jan. 21, 2007, after losing 21 pounds in 15 days while in the Golden LivingCenter-Greeley facility. The state Department of Health investigated the death and found the center "in neglect."

He weighed 155 pounds Dec. 12.   By Dec. 27, he weighed only 134 pounds--a 21 pound drop.  Records show Cole ate nothing for 15 meals during the eight-day period before he collapsed. An employee said she planned to request a nutritional supplement for Cole, to be eaten three times a day — but it was never provided.

"When you have patients with dementia, they do not understand that they are hungry or thirsty," Plaintiff's attorney Mark Kosieradzki said. "That is one of the reasons you take them to nursing homes. They are supposed to get care there."

Cole's wife, Virginia, visited him every day. She noticed his weight loss and asked the staff about it — and was told he was fine.  The center staff did not notify doctors or family about Cole's weight loss.  

Cole was finally sent to a hospital Dec. 29. He was diagnosed with dehydration, kidney failure and pneumonia.  Doctors had to give him more than 2.5 gallons of fluids intravenously. He then regained 20 pounds of weight — proof of how severely dehydrated he was.  But the damage to Cole had been done. Severe dehydration damages cells and organs, including the brain. Cole died in hospice care Jan. 21, 2007.

The Golden LivingCenter facility in Stillwater is part of a national chain of nursing care facilities.

 

Office manager stole $183,000 from nursing home

Michelle Norman, who worked as a business office manager for a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center for nearly 10 years, has been indicted in the theft of more than $183,000.  How could anyone not notice that much money missing? 

She was employed by Lake Pointe Health Center.  The missing funds were discovered during a complete audit of the firm’s books.   The 182-bed facility, which has been under the management of Lake Pointe Health Center since December 2005.

Patients at the facility maintain individual accounts used to pay for personal bills or other expenses.  Those accounts are maintained by a combination of funds provided by retirement or pension plans, Medicaid and family members.

Norman is accused of using what police said was a scheme that became increasingly complex as she obtained money from various accounts by writing checks and then replacing shorted funds with money from other accounts “to maintain the balances,” Carpentiere said. “It became something that progressively affected more and more accounts.”

 

Resident hit by train

The Charleston Gazette out of West Virginia had an article about the tragic and clearly preventable death of a nursing home resident who wandered away from the facility unsupervised and was struck by a train on nearby tracks.  Why didn't the facility notice he was missing?  Why weren't they able to prevent him from wandering away from the facility? What was their staffing level on that day?  Did they have a wanderguard on him?

In a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court, George W. King Sr.'s children, Sharon Milam and George W. King Jr., allege that Heartland of Charleston, a subsidiary of Health Care and Retirement Corp. of America, LLC, failed to properly monitor the 73-year-old former owner of Pineview Cemetery in Orgas.  "George King Sr. could not care for himself or be allowed to walk outside the facility and the staff of the facility at Heartland of Charleston was aware of this fact," the suit reads.

Workers at the facility failed to follow the company's established protocols for missing residents and failed to adequately supervise King.  "The staff of Heartland of Charleston failed to keep him secure in the facility, failed to immediately discover that he had left the facility, searched for him in the wrong area (because they confused him with a different person who had left the facility on a prior date), failed to use the exterior security cameras to identify the direction in which he left the facility and failed to utilize all available resources to locate him quickly [such as a search dog team]," the suit states.

 

Wrongful death lawsuit filed in Chicago

I found this cool website called Aboutlawsuits.com that had an article about a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Chicago alleging the nursing home's neglect caused fatal pressure ulcers or bedsores. 

The lawsuit states that Stanley “Ted” Dancy, 77, was admitted to the nursing home. However, after one month in the nursing home for rehabilitation, he was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was diagnosed with four advanced stage bed sores, as well as malnutrition and a urinary tract infection

As a result of the injuries sustained at the nursing home, Dancy’s health continued to deteriorate and the wrongful death lawsuit alleges that the bedsores and other injuries he sustained at Washington Heights Nursing Home were the contributing factors that lead to his death on December 12, 2007.

Nursing home bedsores, which are also commonly referred to as decubitus ulcers or pressure sores, are caused by prolonged pressure on one area of the body.  This is typically caused by the staff's failure to move the residents.  This pressure results in a lack of blood flow to the skin in that area, which turn into an open would that progress to a serious and fatal infection.

When immobile residents are not repositioned for long periods of time, pressure can accumulate on one area of the skin, typically involving the thin layers of skin around the tailbone, shoulder blades, elbows or heels.  Many residents do not get moved or repositioned for days because of inadequate and incompetent staff.

Many nursing home lawsuits involve circumstances where the nursing home was not properly monitoring the resident for signs of the pressure ulcers and leaving the resident in one position for extended periods of time. Failure to properly clean the resident, change soiled adult diapers or bed sheets also increases the risk of bedsores developing and getting infected.

Injuries caused by malnutrition and dehydration are a result of a failure to provide adequate amounts of food or fluids to a resident and are linked to negligence and neglect.

 

Consumer fraud case against Extendicare

Seattlepi.com had an article about the lawsuit against the infamous Extendicare.  See article here.

The article mentions that the lawsuit against Extendicare has been expanded to include new allegations that the homes admitted residents with disregard to meeting their needs in order to boost profits. The suit also alleges that Milwaukee-based Extendicare Health Services violated consumer protection laws by advertising high-quality, skilled nursing care and failing to deliver.

Extendicare, which runs one of the largest nursing-home chains in North America, violated a state law that bars nursing homes from making residents sign a form waiving liability for injury or property loss. Extendicare is "more interested in protecting themselves from liability and thereby increasing profits than protecting the rights, health and safety of their own elderly and vulnerable residents," the complaint states.

Federal records show that nearly all of Extendicare's Washington homes have higher-than-average scores for health deficiencies from state inspectors.

 

Wrongful death lawsuit filed for fatal fall

Family sues nursing home after senior falls, dies (09/26/08 Orange County Register) By Rachanee Srisavasdi and Courtney Perkes

Luveda Fern Kessler fell and cut her leg as she got out of bed at her Laguna Hills assisted living apartment.   It was 1:33 a.m. The 83-year-old woman did as she had been told to do: Press a personal emergency response call button.  She waited, bleeding from the two-inch gash. Twenty-four minutes later, at 1:57 a.m., an unidentified staffer at Villa Valencia Health Care Center called 911.  Valencia is owned and operated by Sunrise Senior Living that owns hundreds of for profit nursing homes.

Paramedics arrived at 2:10 a.m. Kessler lay on her stomach, nonresponsive. She was soon pronounced dead at a local hospital. Villa Valencia did not report the incident to the state.  

The Virginia-based company - which runs 445 senior centers internationally - has garnered criticism in two other lawsuits this year over care of residents at Villa Valencia's adjacent nursing home unit.

In one of the cases, a jury in May awarded $2 million to the family of Mary Adams, who died in March 2005 after a brief stay at the center. Lawyers representing the Adams family argued that Villa Valencia was understaffed to give Adams adequate treatment for her pressure ulcers - which lead to her death.

A nurse identified Kessler as being at risk for falls, but she was not given assistance getting out of bed or going to the bathroom.

"My preference would be to have her at my house,'' said Joanne Kessler, who lives in Aliso Viejo. "But I have a condo with a tri-level. There's no way she could handle stairs. I thought, 'It was better than her being alone, back in Seal Beach.' "

Resident died because of neglect

Myjournalcourier.com had an article written by Maria Nagle about a recent lawsuit filed against a nursing home on behalf of Bruce Hopley who was only 51 years young.   The article states that when Mr. Hopley, 51, was admitted to Golden Moments Senior Care Center.  The staff knew or should have known that Mr. Hopley was “severely diabetic.”   He had a history of emergency hospitalizations because of seizures and erratic blood sugar levels.

On Sept. 17, 2006, Mr. Hopley was found dead about an hour after the facility documented he had high blood sugar levels. His death came 19 days after he had been admitted to the facility.

The lawsuit claims negligence in Mr. Hopley’s death because his blood sugar levels were not properly monitored. He was not provided the proper care at the nursing home.   As a result of the alleged negligence, Mr. Hopley suffered “great mental and physical pain prior to his death."

The lawsuit also alleges Golden Moments was under capitalized, and there exists state and federal tax liens against the facility exceeding $250,000. The facility also allegedly employs staff at levels below the national average for similar facilities, “creating dangerous conditions for the residents of the nursing home,” the lawsuit alleges.

 

Late Night Snack

This story is rather far from home, but I thought I'd share it.  Apparently an elderly man in a nursing facility got up hungry, and was given a snack by an aide.  He was later found spitting into a sink with a bottle of pink industrial diswashing detergent nearby.  He was taken to the hospital with burns to the mouth, esophagus, and vocal cords, where he died four days later.

This is like basic child proofing, and I'm terrible at child proofing - I think I'll try harder.

I'm pretty sure there's a violation of a policy and/or procedure here somewhere.

If you're interested, its a short article.

Nursing home and parent corporation sued

The West Virginia Record had an article explaining why a resident's family sued the nursing home that neglected her and the parent company that controlled the budget, staffing, and equipment used at the facility.  

The article states that the woman died from injuries sustained in a Dunbar nursing home seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The suit is against Sunbridge Care and Rehab and the Sun Healthcare Group, Inc.

McCarty was admitted to Sunbridge Care and Rehab at the age of 79. Upon her admission, McCarthy suffered from dementia and could no longer handle her affairs. Her cognitive and physical skills were impaired. She died as a result of the injuries she sustained in a fall at the facility.

Among the injuries she sustained while at the nursing home were falls, weight loss, dehydration, malnutrition, constipation, a perforated bowel, infections, and ultimately, her death.  She suffered injuries, disfigurement, extreme pain, suffering, and mental anguish.

"The scope and severity of the recurrent wrongs inflicted upon Ferris McCarthy while under the care of the facility accelerated the deterioration of her health and physical condition beyond that caused by the normal aging process and resulted in physical and emotional trauma," the suit says.

Extendicare's neglect and understaffing causes wrongful death

On Seattlepi.com there was an article about the tragic death of Lee Ann Steele caused by the understaffing and neglect of a for profit nursing home.

Lee Ann, who had suffered a stroke,  lived at Aldercrest Health & Rehabilitation Center.  She needed a tracheotomy. The Steele family had felt assured by the facility's promises of skilled, high quality care, but less than 24 hours after their daughter was admitted, her tracheal tube clogged with mucous, causing oxygen loss and brain damage. Lee Ann Steele, once a vibrant church secretary who had volunteered at a food bank, died a few months later, in January 2007. She was 49.

The family wanted answers so they filed a lawsuit against Exyendicare Homes, Inc., the company that owns and manges the facility.   The complaint, filed in King County, accuses Milwaukee-based Extendicare of violating consumer-protection laws by advertising "quality standards above government regulations" and failing to deliver.

The lawsuit highlights problems regarding Extendicare, one of the largest nursing-home chains in America. The company runs 268 facilities for up to 30,000 residents.  In Washington, two of the company's homes are on a federal list of troubled facilities that require extra inspections by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Four of its homes, including Aldercrest, have been barred in the past from accepting new residents. Five have been hit with fines totaling thousands of dollars.  Many complaints, including those alleging wrongful deaths, stemmed from neglect and poor treatment for such conditions as pressure sores and diabetes.

She said the company appeared to have a high turnover in management. She also said the homes routinely accepted more residents -- and more acutely sick residents -- than staff members could handle. 

On Oct. 5, 2006, the day Steele was admitted, her family found her lying on a sheetless rubber mattress and her tracheal-tube equipment on the floor, unhooked, with no one attending to her for several hours.  Steele  suffered respiratory distress and died soon after.

 

Another lawsuit against Sunrise Senior Living

Sunrise Senior Living faces another neglect and negligence lawsuit (08/20/08 Orange County Register).  Sunrise was ordered to pay $2 million in damages after the death of a resident in May.  The family of Therese Sperry is suing Virginia-based Sunrise Senior Living which owns and operates Villa Valencia Health Care Center.

Sperry spent two weeks in Villa Valencia's skilled nursing unit in January 2007. She developed avoidable pressure ulcers on her feet that were neglected and went untreated.  The lawsuit alleges negligence by Sunrise Senior Living and says the nursing home failed to provide adequate medical staff for ailing residents - despite five health and safety citations in the last decade by state health regulators.   The most recent violations, from last year, include sexual molestation of a patient during a bath and failure to change a patient's catheter often enough to prevent infection.

After a brief hospital stay, she was sent to Villa Valencia for a week to gain strength.  Four days after her admission, she had redness on both heels, which later developed into ulcers that spread to her muscle and bone. Sperry's family immediately transferred to a different nursing home, where she was properly treated for wounds.  She endured debilitating pain until her death.

The suit argues that the facility "carried out a scheme to place 'profits over people' ... (and) intentionally underfunded and understaffed the facility in order to decrease expenses and increase profits."  Proof of understaffing arose in the trial over the death of Mary Kathleen Adams, who also developed pressure ulcers while at the center in February 2005. She died two months later.  In May, a jury ordered Sunrise to pay $2 million to Adams' family for negligence and punitive damages.

"Big corporations like Sunrise cut down on costs and staffing at the expense of patients," said Kim Valentine, one of the lawyers representing the Sperry family, and who also represented Adams.  Valentine also said court testimony showed employees were quitting because of the poor quality of care - a finding reflected in a report by the independent California Nursing Home Search. The agency found that nursing staff turnover at Villa Valencia was 82 percent in 2006, much higher than the state average of 67 percent.

 

Really? They overcharged?

I couldn't help myself with the snarky title . . . Yesterday I came across several articles, well, actually I think they're press releases that said this - That Sunrise Senior Living is being sued by Five Star Quality Care.  Apparently, Sunrise managed 31 senior living communities for Five Star, and participated in Sunrise's insurance programs.  Five Star wasn't happy with Sunrise's services, so they termined all of their management contracts in 2005 and 2006, which cost them significantly in termination fees.  Then in 2006 Sunrise reported that it had "experienced certain accounting irregularities" - that's a great phrase.  Five Star began to ask for an accounting for and payment of the amounts it was overcharged.  Guess what?  They haven't gotten it - no accounting, and certainly no payment. 

Five Star believes they may be owed more than $10million - You can imagine that Sunrise doesn't have much interest in saying, "oh, I think we owe you about $10million" - and you can imagine what else they may have to pay out to other companies besides Five Star.

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

I bet the Sunrise Senior Living stock is not doing so well today . . .(NYSE:SRZ)

That got me interested, so I looked - stock proces are down for Sunrise, and in my searching, it seems that at the first of this month, Sunrise reported a greater than $70 million loss in earnings in 2007.  For more on that, click here.  Interesting.   Well, there is someone in the long term care industry that is losing money . . . Bless their hearts . . .

Surprise Inspections

There's so much talk about how the state conducts surprise inspections in nursing homes.  This article indicates that inspections didn't come as a surprise to at least one nursing home in Kentucky.  I suspect that this happens more often than the nursing home industry would ever admit, and I suspect they'd like to keep it that way.

I know when I worked in long-term care, we sort of had an idea of when the annual survey team would show up, but we were surprised by complaint teams (or maybe i wasn't high enough on the food chain to be aware of it) - but anytime a state survey team came in the front door, a call would go out over the facility wide intercom ; "Dr. Black, line one" or "paging Dr. Black, line one" - something crazy like that - and boy, did people start to scramble.  In five minutes or less, the place looked and smelled clean, if it wasn't already, and the residents were changed and tidied up as quickly as possible. 

I just wonder how surprised most Administrators are . . .

Administrator in Anderson, S.C. arrested


Pearce Adams wrote an article for the Independent Anderson Mail about an administrator of an assisted living facility stealing from his residents.  He was arrested on Wednesday and charged with exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

Robert Dunmoyer, 57, was allowed to post a $25,000 bond in Anderson Municipal Court the attorney general's office made the recommendation, citing Robert Dunmoyer's "cooperation" with the investigation.   Dunmoyer, former administrator with the Magnolia Residential Care center in Anderson, tricked a 75-year-old resident to give Dunmoyer power of attorney for the man. That step gave Dunmoyer legal authority to handle the man's bank accounts and investments.

Supposedly, Dunmoyer took responsibility for his actions after he got caught.  He made excuses for his behavior stating that he was having personal problems from a divorce that “created the state of mind” that allowed him to steal and take advantage of his resident. 

Dunmoyer had taken “approximately $100,000 from (the elderly man's) account with them,” and charged the man $9,500 to handle his stocks, the report states.

Ken Moore, representing the state unit that investigates nursing home and assisted living home crimes, testified that between July 2007 and April, Dunmoyer withdrew $60,000 without the consent of the elderly man.

The discrepancy between the amount mentioned in court and that listed in the incident report was not addressed. Moore said Dunmoyer “told us what he did and why he did it” and was cooperating with authorities.


Victim of neglect files lawsuit against nursing home

Article about lawsuit over husband's fall at nursing home by David Yates, writer for The Southeast Texas Record. 

The nursing home staff found him in a pool of his own blood two years ago.  Clifford Ozen has suffered from seizures and decreased mobility sinc ethat fall.  The Senior Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Port Arthur allowed Mr. Ozen to fall from his bed.  His wife, Sharon Ozen, filed suit against the healthcare provider July 9 in Jefferson County District Court.

On July 28, 2006, Sharon Ozen visited her husband at the 199-bed rehabilitation facility.   After leaving the center, Sharon received a call and was advised that her husband was being rushed to the hospital.   "According to Mr. Ozen's chart, an aide called a nurse because he was found on the floor with his head lying against the frame of the bedside table," the lawsuit said. "Defendant's staff observed blood on the floor in a puddle, as well as a contusion and laceration to the top of Mr. Ozen's head."

Since the fall, Clifford Ozen has suffered from seizures and has been bedridden. Upon his admission to the nursing home in January 2006, Clifford was diagnosed with dementia, confusion, wandering and an unsteady gait.   All risk factors for falling.  Nursing home was on notice that he could fall but did nothing to try to prevent him from injuring himself even though his wife consented to the use of restraints and safety devicesto protect him.

"The only safety precautions being utilized for Mr. Ozen were side rails on his bed and geriatric chair," the suit says. "These precautions were used only intermittently. Further, during his stay, he was unable to ambulate himself and had an impaired safety awareness."

Sharon alleges she informed the nursing home staff of her concerns, but the healthcare provider negligently failed to assess her husband's risk for falling.  The nursing home also allegedly "failed to adequately protect him from falling in light of his confusion, agitation and impaired safety awareness."

Senior Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center is owned by Victoria, Texas-based Regency Nursing & Rehabilitation Centers, Inc.

Nursing home covered up death of resident

WNBC.com had a story about how a nursing home lied to a resident's family regarding her death at the facility.  This typeof cover up oftens happens in nursing homes. The staff is typically the only ones who really know what happened to a resident.   The staff are worried about their job or are instructed by their corporate masters to mislead or cover up the neglect and abuse.

Olive Chase was 94 when she died at Sunrise at Fleetwood, an expensive assisted-living home in Mount Vernon, in February 2007.  The nursing home told Chase's son that she had died in her sleep. The nursing home created an elaborate story that his mother had breakfast, was left alone at one point, and the aide returned to find she had died peacefully in her sleep.  The staff said Chase was sleeping at 7:30 a.m., but was "unresponsive" four hours later. Days after Chase was cremated, however, her family got a tip from someone with second hand knowledge of her death that the woman did not die peacefully.

Bob Chase, son of the woman who died, spoke with some of the staff and to the source who was the first nurse on the scene after his mother's death.   The nurse saw Olive's head caught between the bars of her hospital bed with her feet hanging off the side. The nurse said it appeared as if she struggled and then died of strangulation.

"Her tongue was protruding. It was purple," the nurse said.

The nurse said one of the maintenance workers then lifted Olive's legs while she held onto one of her shoulders.

"We brought her up, laid her flat on her bed," said the nurse. "I brushed her hair. This nursing coordinator told us, 'Don't say anything.'"

The nurse said the last person to treat Olive for a bedsore raised the bed for the treatment but did not lower it after, despite instructions to do so. Olive was known to wander, the nurse said.

"We had a sign on the top of the bed, readily visible, stating to lower the bed at its lowest level when finishing care," the nurse said.

An anonymous call to the state Department of Health days after Olive's death reported that the woman appeared to have died of asphyxiation after her head was caught in the bars, which triggered an investigation. The department concluded the caller's complaint was valid. The department found that Olive's body had been rearranged after her death, but it was not reported that way in Sunrise's records.



Police investigating suspicious death of nursing home resident

Newport News Dailypress.com had an article about a suspicious death of a resident of a nursing home.  There appears to be a link between his death and medicine he got the day before.

A nurse who gave unauthorized medicine last week to a nursing home resident who later died has been fired.  Police are considering whether the medication caused or contributed to the death of John P. Stratton, 76, of Newport News, who was staying at the James River Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center.  Stratton was given the medicine on May 5, and died about 4 a.m. on May 6.

The nurse's decision to give Stratton the medicine was not an accident.   "She intentionally gave him the medication," police said. "Her intent in giving it to him will have to come out later."

Police are trying to find out whether Stratton was given an increased dose of a medicine he was prescribed, or medicine he wasn't supposed to get at all.

Joseph Law, James River Convalescent's administrator, said the nurse — whom he declined to identify — was fired after an internal investigation. The actual reason for her firing, Law said, was separate from the issue surrounding Stratton's death. "The nurse was terminated because of facility protocol," Law said. "During our investigation some other information was discovered." He did not elaborate. What a bunch of nonsense. Clearly the facility does not want to admit what happened or what they found out in their "internal investigation". 

It could take a month or longer for the toxicology results.  The examination will include any possible interaction between the medicine the nurse gave him and other drugs Stratton was taking.

One of Stratton's daughters, Denise Barnes of Newport News, said the family doesn't know what drug or drugs the nurse gave her father.   A staffer at the home brought to his attention the possible link between the medication and Stratton's death. He then called police and state agencies.

I'm surprised they didn't fire the staffer who refused to cover it up.

No Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

This is not a post about a nursing home case.  But it is interesting.  I was emailed a blurb about an article on how the VA is directing their staff (presumably doctors) to avoid diagnosing patients with Post Traumatic Stress disorder. 

The email was titled "suggestion" - and it "suggested" diagnosing patients with a diagnosis which would provide lower disability payments.  Now, of course, the email doesn't come out and say that - it does, however, come out and say that they should consider a diagnosis of "Adjustment disorder R/O PTSD" - Adjustment disorder certainly sounds less expensive. 

I think all of us have had or will have adjustment disorder ~ adjusting to a new job, adjusting to a new marriage, adjusting to a new divorce, adjusting to a new baby, adjusting to a new house . . . . This is a far cry different from what some of our Soldiers returning home from war experience.  Adjustment disorder doesn't seem to accurately cover it.

 

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Family files wrongful death suit against nursing home

Jay Cameron whose mother died in a California nursing home filed a lawsuit against the facility saying it caused his mother’s death by reducing staff to save money. 

Cameron alleges the home committed elder abuse, fraud, wrongful death, negligence and violated patient rights. He is asking for an undetermined amount of money and reimbursement for attorneys’ fees. 

Cameron’s mother, Margaret Williams, was a resident at Mission View before being transferred to French Hospital Medical Center where she died.  Williams fell three times at the facility, suffered a hip fracture and developed pneumoniacausing her death.

Compass Health and administrators at Mission View are trying to increase profits by reducing staff and employing people who were not properly trained or qualified, leading to Williams’ death.

Attorneys for Cameron, Greg Coates and Michael Thamer, argue that the nursing facility took short cuts in care that resulted in unsanitary and hazardous living conditions and left residents unsuper vised. They also said there was an increase in accidents and injuries suffered by residents and nursing staff and other signs of inadequate care.

State records for 2006-07 show the state Department of Public Health issued three citations against the home in 2006 for patient care and fined the facility $2,800, spokeswoman Lea Brooks said.   In April 2007, during a recertification survey, state investigators found deficiencies at the home, Brooks said.

Neglect trial in Texas this week

The children of 94-year-old Alice Limbrick claim their mother's legs had to be amputated  because of negligent care during her stay at the Green Acres Parkdale nursing home.

The trial of Roy Limbrick vs. Mariner Health Care Inc. (Green Acres) began Jan. 23.  The defense will attempt to convince the jury that the amputating Alice Limbrick's legs had to be taken because of Alice's medical conditions and old age.

Alice Limbrick was admitted to Green Acres for long-term care with multiple health problems.  During her residency, Alice fell fracturing her left hip.

The plaintiffs say Limbrick was admitted to the hospital as a result of the preventable fall where she developed pressure ulcers (bed sores) and eight blisters on both heels and left leg. She was in stable condition and was discharged back to Green Acres.

A week later, she was readmitted to the hospital with gangrene on both heels.   The decubitus ulcers to her heels and left leg continued to deteriorate.  Limbrick's legs were amputated below her knees. 

In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Green Acres' nurses were negligent in the following ways:

Failing to properly monitor, treat and care for the decubitus ulcers, which progressed and worsened while Alice was a resident;

Failing to properly assess Alice's risk level in the progression of pressure ulcers;

Failing to prevent the progression of Alice's decubitus ulcers;

And by failing to prevent infection in Alice's decubitus ulcers.

Neglect case involving fatal fall filed

The family of a Pennsylvania man who died shortly after falling and fracturing his hip at an Oakmont nursing home has filed a lawsuit asking for reasonable compensation from the facility for neglect and causing his death.

The family of Charles Grice filed suit Thursday against Presbyterian SeniorCare over negligent operation of its nursing home, The Willows.  Mr. Grice injured his hip when he fell unassisted out of his wheelchair. He died after surgery to fix his fractured hip. 

The staff of The Willows failed to take necessary precautions with Mr. Grice's care even though he was assessed as being at high risk for falls. He had entered the nursing home for rehabilitation, and was to return to home.


Family wants answers about "disappearance"

Family of man who disappeared sues Gooding nursing home.  The family of a man who allegedly wandered away from the Idaho nursing home five years ago has sued thecorporation that operates the facility.

In the lawsuit filed on behalf of Magic Valley Manor resident John Henry Davis allege the home and Northwest Bec-Corp didn't supervise him or keep him safe and free from harm.

Wendell, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, disappeared in July 2002.


Sexual molestation at nursing home

Dothan, Alabama police have arrested a 68-year-old man and charged him with molesting a woman at the nursing home where he lived last month. See full article here.

Aaron Howell is a convicted sex offender.  Howell violated the state community notification act when he moved into Westside Terrace Health and Rehabilitation Center on Nov. 30.  During the month of December he sexually abused an adult female employee there.

The violation to the state community notification act was discovered after an employee at the rehabilitation center viewed the sex offender Web site.  Thursday, Dothan police investigators charged Howell with felony first-degree sex abuse, and two felony violations of the community notification act.

Howell faces the new sexual assault charges nearly 15 years after he was convicted of molesting a 6-year-old girl in February 1993. Howell pleaded guilty in 1993 to first-degree sex abuse after Houston County investigators charged him when he lived in Cottonwood. 



Putting profits over care

A Rockport, Arkansas nursing home chose to evict an elderly resident who was chronically ill. The home dropped her off at a motel in Aransas Pass and never notified the family. 

The home claims it wasn't getting paid for her to stay there.  Ladewig suffers from chronic bronchitis and a muscle disease. Ladewig said she was brought to this motel room after getting evicted. Her family were never told about the move.

When nursing home personnel dropped her off, the family said they left her with food for the weekend and these two portable oxygen tanks that would last about eight hours.

"I would have run out of oxygen and died," said Ladewig. "That's what would have happened to me if she wouldn't have come out looking for me. That's what would have happened."

"There is no phone in this facility, even if in the middle of night she went in respiratory failure or a situation where she couldn't get up, she has no way to contact anybody, whatsoever," Biggs said.

The family said the nursing home was paid through early December.

Beverly Whistleblower

Here's an interesting little article about the former director of operations for Beverly LIving Centers in one of the midwestern states.  "Ken Williston," as he's called in the article, says he was the representative of the national office, and assisted nursing home administrators in meeting the company's clinical and financial goals.  Seems he realized that Beverly was attempting to eliminate family choice of hospice care in favor of SeraCare, which is owned by Beverly.  Mr. Williston reported this finding to his immediate supervisor and to the company compliance officer, and was unemployed within 30 days.

Williston, himself a nursing home administrator, states "Its all about family choice, patient choice.  That's what its all about.  By law, the family has the right to choose their hospice care and home care.  I raised that point with management, and that's why I'm sitting here right now."

Beverly is one of the chains that was recently (2005) acquired by a private equity firm (Fillmore Capital).  Williston says that they know nothing about nursing homes, and they've cut the overhead by ten to fifteen percent to increase their income.

Also sounds like Beverly was increasing their income by encouraging families to "choose" additional health care from their own companies - more money in, less money out.

Advocates Demonstrate Against The Carlyle Group

The headquarters of The Carlyle Group, a Wall Street Investment corporation that made our blog a few weeks ago when we wrote about its involvement with Habana Health Care Center (see Wall Street and Nursing Homes? and Nursing Home Profits), was the site of a demonstration Monday, October 22nd by nursing home advocates.  The Carlyle Group is in the process of taking over Manor Care Inc., a Toledo, Ohio-based nursing home chain with facilities across the country.  Manor Care has several facilities in South Carolina.  

The Washington Business Journal reports that the demonstration was organized by SEIU Healthcare, a health care workers union, and it's purpose was to express worries caregivers and advocates have about the quality of care residents will receive after the the takeover as well as the status of jobs within the facilities.  As we blogged in previous articles mentioning The Carlyle Group, there is much data to support the fact that staffing numbers are cut and care quality goes down when Carlyle is involved.

On Monday, Carlyle made a pledge to quality care at Manor Care facilities saying that education, training, and staffing levels would ensue proper clinical care and all federal and state regulations would be met.  A Carlyle higher-up stated that "Manor Care is poised to become an even stronger health care provider under Carlyle's ownership." 

A statement released by Carlyle said the acquisition of Manor Care is expected to be completed by the end of November.  I suppose only time will tell if Carlyle will uphold their promise to provide quality care to the residents of the former Manor Care facilities.  A statement released by the executive vice-president of the union that organized Monday's event says advocates will continue to hold Carlyle Group "accountable for improving care and staffing at Manor Care." 

The Washington Business Journal also reported that the demonstration was planned to continue on Tuesday at Capitol Hill to lobby Congress to "hold hearings on private equity ownership of nursing homes."  

Senator Grassley is Asking Questions

I recently read an article about Charles Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa who is on the Senate Finance Committee asking long term care insurance companies to explain how they are handling policy holders' claims.  This is the quote I love the most:  "Many long-term care insurers have recently announced that they are raising premiums because they underestimated how many policy holders would eventually make claims."  Hmm, that's interesting.  You're selling insurance for long-term care to the elderly - can't you just assume that most of these people will eventually make a claim?  Or are the insurance companies betting that people will die before they need nursing home care? 

Its sad that people pay into the insurance companies for coverage, and then get the run-around to collect on their claims.  And worse than that, my guess is that many of these "insured" are not in the position to stay on the phone arguing with the insurance company in an effort to get the claims paid - and the insurance company probably bets on this too.

Additionally, Senator Grassley has asked the Government Accountability Office to look at the effect of private equity ownership on quality of care in nursing homes.  According to a recent NY Times article, the number of serious health deficiencies is 19% higher in homes owned by investment firms than in average nursing homes, indicating most likely that these firms are putting profits over people.  One of the things that Senator Grassley points out is that the public is in the dark about nursing home deficiencies, and about the extensiveness of deficiencies industry wide. 

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Fewer Nursing Home Residents

USA Today recently reported that the numbers of elderly (defined in the article as the population of people 85 and older) living in nursing homes is declining.  The article points out that these numbers don't include those living in Assisted Living Facilities, which may in fact reflect a good portion of the 85 and older population. 

This is a good thing, as it may mean that people are living better instead of just longer.  I say that for a couple of reasons:  1) you have to be functioning at a certain level to be in assisted living, 2) it is my opinion that it is always better not to be in a nursing home.

The article also points out the sad fact that the decline is most likely in the "upper-income white population" who has the financial ability to take advantage of options other than nursing home placement.  Everyone else will likely have nursing homes as their only option.  The other sad fact is that "the average nursing home patient runs out of money within six months and must go on Medicaid" - so while these individuals will go broke, and eventually the Medicaid system may go broke, the nursing home industry continues to make money.

To read the entire article, click here.

No medical director equals medicaid fraud

Federal and State regulations mandate that a nursing home hire and retain a medical director for nursing homes.  In a recent case, after a lengthy investigation, a nursing home was found guilty of fraud for failing to have a medical director.   It took the jury about two hours to decide.

The state took Billie Anderson to court because investigators say from March 2002 to January 2003 Anderson operated Anderson Health Care in Gray without a medical director.

During that time she still collected about $100,000 dollars a month for her Medicaid patients—that is a violation of Medicaid laws because she didn't have a medical director.

The guilty verdict means the jury believes Anderson knew there was no medical director and that she concealed or failed to disclose that information to the state.

Investigation related to death at nursing home

Here is an interesting article about an investigation at a nursing home involving a resident who died from suffocation. 

It was Friday, September 7 when authorities say Stephanie Galletti who lived at the Taylor Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center got tangled in some bed rails and suffocated.   According to a search warrant, it is part of a neglect investigation into Galletti's death. She was an Alzheimer's patient with a history of falling out of bed.

Court papers reveal a housekeeper "found Ms. Galletti's head wedged between her bed rail and her mattress."   Included in the evidence seized from the nursing home Wednesday were medical records and an air mattress from Galletti's bed.

According to court papers, the elderly woman died at 7:40 a.m., but her death was not reported to police until 9:48 a.m.   No one can explain the two hour delay.

In the affidavit investigators said, "No explanation was given as to the two hour delay in reporting the incident."  Authorities are also investigating a bed alarm that is supposed to sound if a patient falls out of bed. Detectives said Galletti's bed alarm was turned off.

The bed alarm should not have been off according to the physician's orders.  Clearly, the home did not have the bed alarm on and did not properly supervise the resdient.











Oscar the cat

New England Journal of Medicine has an article about Oscar, a hospice cat at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I., who seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy in 25 cases has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He’d sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill.

No one’s certain if Oscar’s behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.
Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his “compassionate hospice care.”

Nursing home operating without a license

The U.S. Attorney's Office and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare filed a complaint Thursday against the Holland-Glen Nursing Facility in Hatboro, Pa..  See article here.

The complaint alleges the facility has been operating without a nursing facility license and its services "substantially depart from generally accepted professional standards of care, thereby exposing patients to significant risk and, in some cases, to actual harm."

Among the specific allegations in the complaint are that Holland-Glen fails to properly administer medications, provide proper general resident care, check the backgrounds of its employees, and has falsified both resident medical records and records of billings to governmental and other payors.

The complaint seeks an injunction to prevent Holland-Glen from continuing to provide unlicensed care.

Class action approved against nursing home

 A lawsuit against a Fort Smith-based nursing home company can proceed as a class-action suit, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled this week.

The court affirmed a decision to grant class-action certification to a suit alleging Batesville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center failed to live up to contractual and statutory obligations to take care of the basic daily needs of hundreds of residents.

The suit, filed in 2005 by Annette Thomas, names the nursing home and its parent company, which was known in 2005 as Beverly Enterprises, as defendants. Beverly changed its name to Golden Horizons last year following its purchase by Golden Gate National Senior Care.

The suit alleges between Sept. 13, 2000, and June 30, 2004, the nursing home failed to care properly for 489 residents by, among other things, failing to provide adequate staffing and failing to provide a clean, safe living environment.

Attorney Philip Bohrer of Baton Rouge, La., argued the case did not include personal injury claims, but rather claims involving issues such as understaffing which would have affected all residents of the facility. Granting class-action status was preferable to "having 400 individual trials on the same issue and the same evidence," he said.

Bohrer also said many of the plaintiffs are elderly and unaware of their rights and would not be able to file individual claims against the company.

In its decision Thursday, the Supreme Court said the plaintiffs showed the case met the criteria for class-action certification. The justices agreed with Harkey the defendants would benefit from class-action status.

"A class action is clearly a more efficient way of handling a case where there is a predominating, common issue to be resolved for all 489 class members. A class action is also fair to both sides in this case, as it is a vehicle for all class members to have their claims heard, and Beverly will not have to defend against the same assertion of liability in a multitude of different lawsuits," Justice Robert Brown wrote.

Hopefully, justice will prevail

Here is an article about a nursing home company indicted in 2004 for the death of a resident.
Life Care Centers of America Inc. was finally indicted in the preventable death of an elderly woman whose body was found in her overturned wheelchair at the bottom of the front stairway of an Acton facility.

Life Care Centers of America Inc., which owns and operates the Life Care Center of Acton, was charged with manslaughter, abuse and neglect of a long-term care facility resident, and making a false Medicaid claim in connection with the death of 74-year-old Julia McCauley on April 17, 2004.

Attorney General Martha Coakley said that beginning in 1999, a physician had ordered McCauley to wear a device called a WanderGuard, which would set off an alarm and lock the doors of the facility if she approached them. The order also required nursing home staff to check the device daily to ensure it was functioning properly.

On the day she died, McCauley went through the front entryway of the Life Care Center and fell down the stairs. She was not wearing the WanderGuard device. 

The corporation will face a maximum fine of just $1,000 on the manslaughter charge, and no corporate official faces prison time.

Changes in the industry

Nursing homes change with the time
Industry keeps up with residents’ expectations
Originally published April 01, 2007 
By Katie E. Leslie
News-Post Staff

FREDERICK -- For many people, the words "nursing home" bring to mind images of cold tile hallways, greenish room lighting, unattended seniors in distress and a sterile environment that speaks more of an outdated hospital than a home.
Some parts of the industry may have earned that reputation, but Cheryl Wright, marketing director for Homewood at Crumland Farms in Frederick, said today's nursing homes are a far cry from the disturbing visions of yesteryear.

"There's still a lot of education (in the community) that needs to happen," Wright said. "The reality is, things have changed for the better."

Homewood, one of Frederick County's 13 nursing homes, is in the new generation of long-term care centers ----multi-staged retirement communities. In such establishments, people 55 and older can live independently in a house or apartment, and as their needs increase, move into an assisted living unit and ultimately into an advanced care unit.

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