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

NBC New York had the tragic and mysterious story about the investigation into and death of Adriana Neagoe.  Midway Nursing Home is facing a State investigation, and a lawsuit about how the 65-year-old resident could have dropped to the floor not once, but twice, the second time fatally.  Adriana Neagoe's family had decided on Midway Nursing Home after she fainted in front of her church and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Surgery to treat it left her paralyzed.  Neagoe's family says surgery left her able to move only one arm. So it was a surprise when she was injured in the spring of 2008 and they say nursing home staff told them she'd toppled off a bed surrounded by guard rails.

"She cannot fall because she could not move. She was paralyzed," says the victim's nephew Cristin Buiciuc. What does he say really happened? The Romanian immigrant had to be mechanically hoisted up for bathing and so bed sheets could be changed. "They drop her from like five feet. They drop her on her head. That's what she told me before she died," says Buiciuc.

After she hit the floor that second time, Buiciuc, who is also executor of her estate, says he was determined never to bring her back to Midway Nursing Home. It was August 8, 2008. Adriana Neagoe died six days later, still at Elmhurst General Hospital where she'd been rushed for treatment of severe head injuries, of what her family says were complications from them.

After her death, relatives kept their concerns private for more than a year, until the nursing home thought it would be a good idea to send a final bill, for $51,749. "The policy is clearly 'kill them and bill them,' " says family attorney Kenneth M. Mollins, "they negligently kill this woman. They hurt her first, then they hurt her bad enough to kill her and it did kill her the second time, and then they're billing her."

Now the family has sued to reverse that huge final bill and for punitive damages, which means Midway officials might be compelled to explain what happened in their care--under oath. There's little doubt that Midway was required to be reported to the State--and were not.

State Health Department files show Midway has a record in recent years of 43 complaints and incidents for every 100 beds--almost double the statewide average.

Midway Executive Director Moshe Kalter and Administrator Burt Kohn declined repeated requests for response to the family's allegations.

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 Fox8.com out of Cleveland had a recent story about a nursing home resident who was left unattended and allowed to leave the facility unsupervised.  The resident ended up walking on the road and getting hit by a car.  She died from injuries sustained in the  "hit and run" accident.  What is amazing about this story is how the article concentrates blame on the driver of the vehicle instead of the nursing home which was responsible for keeping this resident safe and out of harm's way.  The nursing home should have been watching her and not allow her to leave the premises unsupervised.

Citing declining health, her family recently convinced her to check into the nursing home.   She was very unhappy there and wanted to return home.  This is a clear sign of a risk for wandering.  Her family says she was supposed to be staying in a "locked-down area" when she somehow was allowed to escape.

"There was a security door in her room that she was able to disable at 87 years old. They appear to be very short staffed at night. We were told there was a loud alarm going off but no one went looking to see what was going on," says Meldrum.

According to the Avon Police Department, several 911 calls came in Friday evening alerting them of a car versus pedestrian crash in front of the Good Samaritan Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center on Detroit Road. When officers arrived to the scene, they found Warren lying on the side of the road.  Police say the suspect vehicle did not stop after the accident and drove away from the scene.

Is there any investigation as to why and how she was able to leave the nursing home without being noticed?  how long was she missing?  Why didn't anyone hear the alarm or respond to it? Was the nursing home short-staffed?

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The Pittsburgh Tribune Review had an article about the recent jury trial against a nursing home in a wrongful death lawsuit in which the family of a woman claims the nursing home was negligent in her care and caused her death.  The family of Olive Shaffer contends she received inadequate care during her stay at Harmon House in Mt. Pleasant.   Shaffer fell several times while living in the nursing home and died July 22, 2003, from injuries she sustained in her falls.

Jurors were given evidence that workers at the nursing home falsified records, violated internal policies which make up the standard of care, and were negligent in supervising Shaffer.   The Shaffer family contends that Shaffer fell several times in the nursing home in June, and the staff made insufficient efforts to prevent her from taking more tumbles.

The nursing home had a management company (Grane Healthcare Co) that was responsible for implementing policies and procedures and training staff on fall prevention. In the lawsuit, the family said Shaffer fell twice on July 15, 2003, and she suffered catastrophic injuries, including brain swelling. She died from her injuries a week later, according to the suit.

The nursing home's defense is 1) Old people fall  2)  Falls happen and 3) Falls are not preventable. The only way to prevent it is to tie them up.

I hope the jury listens to the evidence and the defense's frivolous and misleading arguments and awards substantial damages.

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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.

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MSNBC had a story about the citation and fine received by a nursing home for failing to supervise a resident while smoking causing wrongful death.  The state Department of Public Health announced an "AA" citation -- the most severe penalty under state law -- against
the Lemon Grove Care and Rehabilitation Center, based on inadequate care causing a patient's death.

The citation stems from an incident in March, 2008, when a 76-year-old resident was left unattended by the staff in a designated smoking area and caught fire. By the time the staff became aware of the situation, the man was engulfed in flames.  It is unclear how long the man was left unattended or why the staff was not attentive while residents were in the designated smoking area.

Dr. Mark Horton, director of the Department of Public Health, said the Lemon Grove center failed to protect the health and safety of its residents by not providing adequate resident supervision, resulting in the patient suffering fatal injuries.  The CDPH said its citation process -- which ranges from "B" to "AA," is part of its ongoing enforcement efforts to improve the quality of care provided to residents of the state's 1,400 skilled nursing facilities.

The Lemon Grove facility was also fined $80,000.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article about how many errors in health care settings do not get reported.  These errors or mistakes, whatever you want to call them, need to be disclosed so we can figure out how to prevent them in the future.  These health care businesses are more worried about getting caught then preventing them.

The article describes several incidents where patients were not given proper care but the hospitals failed to report the problems such as two patients at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia required additional surgery after objects were negligently left inside their bodies or three patients at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital had to be sent back to the OR last year to stop excessive postoperative bleeding or  At Abington Memorial Hospital, an elderly woman recovering from surgery for a broken hip in 2005 was left on a bedpan for at least 41/2 hours. She developed two open bedsores as a result.

For several years now, hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have been required to report medical mistakes and serious complications to state agencies charged with reducing medical errors. But most hospitals aren't complying, undermining efforts to improve patient safety.  In New Jersey, five of the state's 80 hospitals failed to report a single preventable mistake last year. In Pennsylvania, some facilities didn't report any serious events or even the near misses that might have harmed patients.

James Bagian, head of the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for Patient Safety, said: "Anybody that is supposed to report close calls and has zero reports is clueless; Management is asleep at the switch and just waiting until they kill someone."  The public can only learn that a hospital isn't reporting mistakes in those rare instances when the health department cites it for failing to comply with the law.

"There is still some underreporting, and we are working directly with the hospitals to understand why," said Eliot Fishman, policy director of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.  Consumer advocates want more transparency so patients can make better health-care decisions.

The numbers suggest underreporting is more than just a passing problem.   Calvin Johnson, the Pennsylvania secretary of health, said only people with their "head in the sand" would fail to see the problem of uneven reporting by hospitals. But he noted that with about 200 hospitals and millions of patient visits each year, it is impossible for the state to check every chart.

While it's important to study each of those reports, it is at least as crucial to identify hospitals that are not participating at all, said Conway, of the health-care improvement institute.   "We cannot improve care unless we understand the problems," Conway said. "There can't be safety without transparency."
 

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The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article about how many errors in health care settings do not get reported.  These errors or mistakes, whatever you want to call them, need to be disclosed so we can figure out how to prevent them in the future.  These health care businesses are more worried about getting caught then preventing them.

The article describes several incidents where patients were not given proper care but the hospitals failed to report the problems such as two patients at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia required additional surgery after objects were negligently left inside their bodies or three patients at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital had to be sent back to the OR last year to stop excessive postoperative bleeding or  At Abington Memorial Hospital, an elderly woman recovering from surgery for a broken hip in 2005 was left on a bedpan for at least 41/2 hours. She developed two open bedsores as a result.

For several years now, hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have been required to report medical mistakes and serious complications to state agencies charged with reducing medical errors. But most hospitals aren't complying, undermining efforts to improve patient safety.  In New Jersey, five of the state's 80 hospitals failed to report a single preventable mistake last year. In Pennsylvania, some facilities didn't report any serious events or even the near misses that might have harmed patients.

James Bagian, head of the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for Patient Safety, said: "Anybody that is supposed to report close calls and has zero reports is clueless; Management is asleep at the switch and just waiting until they kill someone."  The public can only learn that a hospital isn't reporting mistakes in those rare instances when the health department cites it for failing to comply with the law.

"There is still some underreporting, and we are working directly with the hospitals to understand why," said Eliot Fishman, policy director of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.  Consumer advocates want more transparency so patients can make better health-care decisions.

The numbers suggest underreporting is more than just a passing problem.   Calvin Johnson, the Pennsylvania secretary of health, said only people with their "head in the sand" would fail to see the problem of uneven reporting by hospitals. But he noted that with about 200 hospitals and millions of patient visits each year, it is impossible for the state to check every chart.

While it's important to study each of those reports, it is at least as crucial to identify hospitals that are not participating at all, said Conway, of the health-care improvement institute.   "We cannot improve care unless we understand the problems," Conway said. "There can't be safety without transparency."
 

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