South Carolina Nursing Home Blog : South Carolina Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Poliakoff & Associates Law Firm : Elderly Care, Senior Care

Lexington Herald-Leader had an article about Kentucky indicting nursing home employees for neglecting a resident and trying to cover it up.  A nurse and two nursing assistants have been indicted in connection with a case of neglect at Creekwood Place Nursing Home in Logan County.

One of the nursing assistants, Melissa L. Lyon, was trying to transfer a patient into bed on her own, even though the patient's care plan called for two people to lift the person.   As a result, the patient suffered a fractured leg.   After the incident, Lyon and the other nursing assistant, Destiny W. Duncan, "concealed the true facts of the incident," the news release says.

The nurse, Barbara A. Moore of Beechmont, "did not call a physician or family member or check on the victim, all of which caused the victim prolonged suffering and pain," the release states.  Each of the women was indicted on a single count of knowing abuse or neglect of an adult, a Class C felony. 

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There have been several articles about the lawsuit filed against Everett Rehabilitation and Care Center that neglected a resident's penis until it rotted off.  See articles here, here, and here.

A lawsuit has been filed against a Washington state nursing home accused of neglecting Charles Bradley's penile infection.   The lawsuit states that Bradley was taken to an emergency room, where doctors discovered his penis had decayed, leaving only a gaping wound. He died 18 days later, in March 2008.   The lawsuit cites an investigation by the state Department of Social and Health Services, which shows the nurse told a manager in November 2007 that the man had a wound on his penis. Staff noticed that Bradley's skin was breaking down while changing his diaper in November 2007.  The records say the manager forgot about the report and neglected to properly care for the wound.  Though staff notified a care manager, that manager failed to notify Bradley's doctor. Instead, the manager went on a three-week vacation and when she returned she forgot about the nurse's report.

Bradley's family claim staff at the nursing home left a wound on the elderly man untreated for months. Nursing home records allege that staff changed the man's diaper daily and provided him weekly baths between November 2007 and March 13, 2008.  During the four months that followed the initial notice of the wound, Bradley's genitals essentially broke apart bit by bit while the elderly man steadily lost weight.   By allowing Bradley's injury to fester and worsen for months, the nursing home and parent company SunBridge Healthcare Corp. violated a promise to care for him. "They trusted that the nursing home would provide the care they said they would provide," family spokesman said Wednesday. "We're not talking about extraordinary care. We're talking about basic daily needs."

An investigation conducted by the center's director of nursing "did not find any impropriety" by staff. State regulators, though, issued the center a citation for failing to meet quality of care requirements set by federal law.  The state determined that the home failed to meet a federal standard for care. The man didn't receive timely medical attention and the facility failed to notify his family or his doctor of changes in his health, the state determined. 

"There was no evidence the facility had contacted the resident's physician … to allow for timely medical intervention," the state investigators said in an investigatory report provided by DSHS. "There was no evidence the facility had contracted their social services department or the resident's family."  A financial penalty was not assessed.

“They definitely should have seen it. There was no documentation that his penis was beginning to fall off,” Gooding said. “We believe they chose not to put it in the records.”  Sounds like a cover up but no monetary fine was issued!

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Michael Owens has a follow up article to his recent articles about how NHC cover uped and protected a sexual predator and allowed him to continue working in the health care field despite being required by law to report abuse.  This is a fascinating story that needs to be told.  It is a perfect example of how corporate greed conflicts with quality care of nursing home residents.  Obviously, Mr. Wright will go to jail but so should the Administrator and Director of Nursing who let this predator roam the halls of nursing homes.  It will be interesting to see if law enforcement and regulatory agencies do anything about this tragic case.

The article explains that the DON Anne Franklin not only ignored four National Healthcare Bristol nursing home employees who filed written accusations that Wright was sexually assaulting patients but actually  threw at least two of those complaints into a trash can.   Was this a cover up or just the corporate policy so there wouldn't be a paper trail?

 Luckily, CNA Cynthia Aldrich, lashed out in a fit of frustration at the nursing home’s on-call doctor, urging him to do something.  More than a month later, James W. Wright would leave the nursing home, but not before one more nurse complained to supervisors that she twice caught him sexually abusing a blind woman patient.

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The L.A. Times reported that a nursing home was fined only $75,000 for the wrongful death of a resident.  The nursing home was well aware that the resident had a history of swallowing problems but did nothing to prevent him from choking to death on a snadwich that never should have been given to him.  .  In fact, the nursing home failed to immediately treat the resident when he began choking.

The patient had dementia and a known history of having difficulty with swallowing. The patient's care plan at Anaheim Crest Nursing Center said he should only be given pureed food.  The state investigation documented two incidents Sept. 9 when the patient ate solid food. At dinner, he was fed an incorrect meal and given a spoonful of vegetables and rice. After he started coughing, a nursing assistant performed the Heimlich maneuver and a "tomato-like" material was coughed up.  Later that same evening, the patient got  a sandwich and began to eat it and began choking and turning colors.

According to the state, there was no documented evidence that the patient received emergency treatment for choking.  It is the standard in all nursing homes that if something was not documented then it wasn't done.  Nurses are trained in school on this principle and every nursing home in the country abides by the principle.  Despite this standard, the nursing home is now claiming that the staff did attempt the Heimlich maneuver, administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and called 911. 

The nursing home tried to claim that the death was a result of a heart attack, and that they had not been informed the patient had a choking incident just before his death.  If that is true, then why did they allegedly try to do the Heimlich maneuver.  They can't keep their lies and cover-up straight!

After the coroner determined that the patient had choked on a piece of food found in his larynx, a subsequent internal investigation uncovered the second, and ultimately fatal, choking incident.

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Keloland.com had an article about the sexual abuse allegations at an elderly home in Hot Springs, S.D.  Many family members are appropriately concerned. The DCI is finally looking into reports dating back to January at the Castle Manor Nursing home.  Hospital officials say they know of more victims. Board President of Castle Manor Rich Nelson knows of at least three victims and has received several other complaints. The suspect is a male nursing assistant.  Family members of the alleged victims claim Fall River Health Services tried to cover up the abuse.

When sisters Sharon Deboer and Gwendolyn Ketterer needed a long-term care facility for their mother two-and-a-half years ago, they had no doubts about the care at Castle Manor. That changed when the 84-year-old dementia patient started acting out of character late last year when a male nursing assistant began taking care of her.

"I just felt that there was something with him that I just couldn't put my finger on. I couldn't put my finger on it but I suspected that type of thing. It was just a feeling," Deboer said.  On January 17, Deboer's suspicions were confirmed.  "One of the staff called me and told me she had to talk to me, that she had something to tell me. She told me right when we met that this CNA, this male CNA, had been molesting my mom," Deboer said.

That was the only type of notification the sisters received from Castle Manor, despite an abuse report filed with the Department of Health three days earlier. The suspect stayed on as an employee for weeks before Manor officials say he was finally let go. That was part of Fall River Health Service's efforts to cover up the abuse.

How many others suffered abuse silently while Manor staff looked the other way.

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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.

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MSNBC had a tragic story about an investigation into the sexual assault of a resident by a staff member in Rochester, N.Y.  News 10NBC called the Shore Winds Nursing Home to find out what happened.  Not surprisingly, the man who spoke with the reporter said nothing happened, and when pressed with more questions he hung up. The reporter headed to the nursing home to find people who would answer questions.

The complaint came into State Health just before Christmas. It said a nursing home worker had sexual contact with a resident. The New York State Department of Health said it inspected the nursing home that day and found the claim was serious enough to warrant a full investigation.

It's still not common knowledge inside the home.  Rochester Police said they say they're investigating along with the state, but so far no one has been arrested or charged.

The nursing home is quoted saying nothing happened.  Over the course of the last three years the state has investigated 46 complaints at Shore Winds and cited them four times. Most of the complaints had to do with medical or structural complaints, nothing like this.

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The Capital-Journal Editorial Board had a recent editorial about a change in federal rules on nursing home inspections that restricts access to information about care facilities. The changes were adopted by the Bush administration and went into effect in October.

"It's an extremely troubling development — it puts a lot of information related to nursing-home inspections off-limits," said the director of a nonprofit organization funded in part by the federal Administration on Aging. "I think it's certainly bad for consumers and the folks who represent them."

The change barred nursing home inspectors from releasing privileged information to the public without approval from the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. State employees who performed inspections for the federal government have been reclassified as federal employees as part of the revision.

The editorial was based on an Associated Press story which focused on an 81-year-old woman who was transported from a North Carolina nursing home to a hospital in 2006 with pain in her hip.  The woman's family later discovered her hip had been fractured, but no one at the nursing home had told the family anything about an accident.  Her daughter was able to find out what happened, but only by reviewing follow-up reports by state inspectors.

Under the new rules, those documents wouldn't be available except with approval by the head of the sprawling Medicare and Medicaid Services agency. In the North Carolina case, the family learned from state regulators that a nurse's aide had allowed her mother to fall. The aide then got colleagues to prop up the woman in a chair and agree not to report the incident to a supervisor, as required.  This kind of cover up is typical of many nursing homes.

It took more than two weeks for the woman to obtain treatment for the bone fracture. Now, she can't walk.

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St. Louis Post dispatch had a story about another resident who died of exposure when the facility failed to supervise her. The resident was left alone outside for hours and died of exposure.   Interviews of employees at the Northgate Park Nursing Home provide no explanation for how the resident ended up dying of exposure right outside the door to the facility. Fannie Mae Rooks was found dead in her wheelchair in the cold and rain.  Officers have talked with much of the staff, trying to learn how Rooks got to an outside smoking area sometime after the 9 p.m. rounds.  Investigators are trying to figure out how Rooks remained unnoticed there for several hours.

CommuniCare Heath Services owns the nursing home.  No employee has been disciplined or fired.

Rooks was found in a courtyard about 2 a.m. in the cold rain. Temperatures that night were between 36 and 40 degrees. Rooks was outside for several hours because she was last seen by nursing staff at 9 p.m. rounds.  The family believes that the staff tried to cover up the circumstances by bringing her body inside and trying to "clean her up and dry her off" before calling authorities.

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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.

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