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

Fox News ran a NY Post article on the verdict against a Brooklyn nursing home.  Brooklyn Queens Nursing Home will have to compensate the family of a 76-year-old patient neglected so badly that he left with more than 20 bedsores. The verdict of nearly $19 million, handed down by a jury, is the first in the state against a nursing home that includes punitive damages.

"It was horrible," said Margaret Whitehurst, who pulled her father, John Danzy, from the home after just nine months. "He walked in on two legs and a cane. He was 237 pounds. When we got him back, he was 148 pounds and he had holes all over his body."  She and her siblings moved Danzy, a retired truck driver and butcher, to another nursing home. He died as a result to an infection caused by the bedsores.

A Brooklyn jury deliberated two full days following the four-week trial before finding the Cypress Hills facility delivered substandard care.  The panel awarded $3.75 million for Danzy's pain and suffering, but tacked on $15 million in punitive damages, based in part  that the home had doctored records to try to cover up the neglect.

An FBI expert testified that about 100 different skin-check notes showing "G" for "good" had been penned over to show "B" for "broken" — an effort by the home to claim it hadn't missed the horrific sores.  "Someone went back and wrote B's over the G's to cover their tracks, so they falsified the records, he said. "We believe that once they found out they were being sued, they went back and said, 'How could we have G's here when they guy has 20 sores?' "

The nursing home restrained the Alzheimer's-stricken Danzy to keep him from wandering off, but left him alone for long periods.  Medical standards require that bedridden or restrained patients be moved every two hours to prevent such sores, but that Brooklyn-Queens only moved Danzy every four hours — if at all.

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A resident's chart is required to be complete, accurate, and legible.  The chart is a legal-medical document that is used to communicate among shifts, to document the resident's condition and to prove the care actually provided.  Often times the charts are false, fraudulent, or simply misleading.  In The Pittsburgh Channel's article, the facility falsely documented and forged a family member's signature for reimbursement.

Team 4 investigative reporter Paul Van Osdol reported that 77-year-old Gene Cable checked into Scottdale Manor last November. Just six days later, he was dead.   Cable's daughter, Rita Wilson, wanted to find out what happened, so she requested his medical records. When she got them, she was shocked. After Cable died, one of the first documents to catch the eye of his daughter was a Medicaid reimbursement form with what appears to be her signature.

"This was a document you were supposed to sign?" Van Osdol asked.

"Yes," Wilson said.

"You never did?" Van Osdol asked.

"No. I swear to God. I didn't sign that," Wilson said.

Wilson said she also saw a nurse's notes showing that her father supposedly went to the bathroom "when he was dead. And he was continent. That means he physically got up and went to the bathroom when he was dead."

Wilson complained to the administrator of Scottdale Manor Rehabilitation Center. She says administrator Brian Bazylak told her they took disciplinary action against the employee who allegedly forged her name and the employee who entered the inaccurate nursing notes.  Did they report them to the Board of Nursing?  Did they even fire them?  Did they audit all the other charts?

Attorney Peter Giglione, who has sued numerous nursing homes, says he is not surprised by what happened to Wilson. "We've had a couple cases tried here in Allegheny County where we've had staff members charting on our client after they're dead," Giglione said.

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The Charelston Gazette had an interesting article about a former employee of Broadmore Estates who has sued the Putnam County assisted-living facility for allegedly overlooking alcohol and substance abuse by its employees, and ignoring state regulations for drug distribution.  Lynn Gomez of Elkview filed the lawsuit in Putnam County Circuit Court on against Broadmore and the facility's director, Delores Miles.  Gomez alleges in her lawsuit that she was ostracized and lost her job because of several complaints she brought to Miles about drug abuse and employee conduct.

Gomez was hired in February as a registered nurse and as director of wellness at Broadmore's assisted-living facility in Hurricane.    When she began working, Broadmore's patient charts and medical records were in disarray, the facility was understaffed and staff members did not follow state regulations for drug distribution.

She also alleges that, within her first few weeks at Broadmore, she was approached by a staff member and a pharmaceutical representative about a nurse who consistently came to work drunk or with alcohol on her breath.  Gomez alleges that the nurse approached her and stated "Lortabs do nothing for her and that she had already had four Percocet that day."

Gomez states that she approached Miles about the woman's statement and was told the nurse "had been on drugs for a long period of time, and could practice while on the medications." She also was told the nurse had been off work for a medical condition, the lawsuit states.

Gomez alleges that the nurse falsified patient charts, saying she had administered drugs that she actually had not, and that Miles falsified documents to reflect that the drugs had been properly administered and were accounted for.

The nurse eventually was fired after an outside pharmaceutical representative discovered that the nurse had falsified drug distribution records, the lawsuit states.

Gomez wants back pay, compensation for emotional and mental stress and attorney's fees.
 

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The Buffalo News had a story about 3 nursing home employees who were only disciplined when the employees did not check on a resident or failed to report him missing for over 11 hours.  The Health Department found that the employees, over an 11-hour period, each noticed that Trent Lockridge was not in his room but did not report it.  The resident either fell, was pushed, or jumped from his second-floor room in Dosberg Manor on the night of Feb. 17, but his body was not found until the next morning.

The Health Department required that the facility discipline the employees involved, put in place new policies for ensuring the whereabouts of all residents and train its employees in the new system.

Health Department investigators visited Dosberg Manor after Lockridge’s death, interviewing staff members and reviewing facility records. Their report found that the first employee had responded to a Feb. 17 call from Lockridge’s roommate requesting help in closing the window. The employee noted that the window was wide open, Lockridge’s glasses were on the nightstand, and his walker was near the window. She neither investigated the fact that he was not in the room nor told anyone about it.  In fact, when first questioned by department investigators, she lied and told them that she had seen Lockridge in his room at 9:40 p.m. She later confessed to a co-worker that this was not the case, the report states.

The second employee, who went into the room at 11 p. m. as part of a daily census of residents, assumed that Lockridge had been hospitalized but did not follow up on this or attempt to confirm it.

The third employee, who was assigned to Lockridge’s floor, stopped by the room at midnight as part of her rounds and also noticed that Lockridge was not in his bed, according to the report. Further, Lockridge’s medical records reflected that staff had helped him take a dose of medicine at 6:30 a. m. Feb. 18, when he was still missing. He was not reported missing until 6:45 a. m., when a nurse said she couldn’t find him. His body had been outside for at least 11 hours in freezing temperatures.

The report concludes that the employees should have notified a supervisor when they saw that Lockridge was missing and that the window was open. It does not name them.  Neither the Weinberg Campus nor the Health Department would say what disciplinary action was taken. Weinberg has agreed to put in place a new system for keeping track of Dosberg Manor residents and to train employees in the new procedures.

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The DesMoines Register has an article about a woman who complained about the care her mother ws recieving at a nursing home being arrested after the nursing home stated that she was "abusing" her mother.  This lack of accountability by the nursing home is astounding.  Trying to quiet the family of a neglected resident who had every right to complain about the poor care given to her mother is ridiculous.  Obviously, the nursing home did not want the family to witness other acts of neglect and wanted to protect their mother.  Below are excerpts of the article.

A Cedar Falls woman who claims she was jailed in retaliation for complaints about her mother's care at a Waverly nursing home has sued the home and the city.   Maxine Veatch, 64, and her sister, Christine Price, 57, of Mason City sued Bartels Retirement Community, at whose nursing home their 94-year-old mother, Agnes Bell, has lived since 2004.

Co-defendants include the home's administrator, Debra Schroeder; its director of nursing, Brianna Brunner; and Police Sgt. Jason Leonard.  Veatch and Price allege false imprisonment, negligence, defamation and malicious prosecution. Police and nursing home officials could not be reached for comment. The sisters have asked for at least $75,000.

The federal lawsuit alleges the sisters noticed problems such as medication errors and a lack of cleanliness in 2006 when they visited their mother at Bartels' Woodland Terrace nursing home. When they raised their concerns with managers, administrators compiled "a book of false and/or misleading accusations" against the sisters, the lawsuit claims.

The state has cited the home for 11 violations since 2004. Last year, inspectors alleged a high rate of medicine errors and problems with nursing services.

Bell allegedly collapsed in Veatch's arms on Sept. 27, 2006, while she walked with her daughters to the home's dining room. Veatch swung her 145-pound mother into the nearest wheelchair, and Bell recovered within a few minutes, according to the lawsuit.  A worker at the home reportedly complained to her bosses that she saw Veatch shove her mother into the wheelchair. Veatch was summoned two days later to the police station, where Leonard allegedly issued her a citation for assault and put her in jail for 23 hours. Veatch was then barred from the nursing home for 13 months. Price was denied visits for eight months.

Veatch was acquitted of the criminal charge. After Iowa Department of Human Services officials classified her as an abuser, Veatch appealed the decision, and her mother testified on her behalf. Administrative Law Judge Mark Lambert overturned the department's finding and stated that Veatch had "prevented a potentially much more serious injury to her mother."

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