Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

Missouri State Fire Marshall Randy Cole recently recommended that smoke detectors be installed in the rooms of most nursing home and long term care facilities in Missouri. His reasoning is simple: by the time a fire is hot enough to trigger the sprinkler system, a room can be engulfed in smoke. If the door is closed and the resident is bedridden, that smoke may not reach a hallway smoke detector until after the resident is dead or dying of smoke inhalation.

In a surprising and disappointing ruling of savings over safety, Missouri legislators on the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules recently voted 9-0 to kill the recommendation of smoke detectors in every room. Why? It would cost too much, according to the nursing home industry. Reportedly, the average cost to install smoke detectors in an entire facility would be $25,000 to $35,000.

In an industry that takes in millions of dollars in profit and where many owners have their own private jets, it seems like this is a small amount of money to pay to insure the safety of vulnerable, elderly residents.

Fortunately, Randy Cole is not finished with the nursing home industry yet. He is trying to influence wording of the regulations that the Rules Committee ordered rewritten by the Department of Health and Senior Services.

The legislators responsible for the decision that leaves Missouri's nursing home residents at risk are: Rep. Timothy Flook (R-34), Rep. Sam Page (D-82), Rep. Jason Smith (R-150), Rep. Bryan P. Stevenson (R-125), Rep. Mike Talboy (D-37), Sen. Joan Bray (D-24), Sen. Victor E. Callahan (D-11), Sen. Jack Goodman (R-29), Sen. John E. Griesheimer (R-26), and Sen. Luann Ridgeway, (R-17). You can contact your representatives and senators who were involved in this decision.

When contacted about this decision Committee member Bryan Stevenson (R-125) stated very clearly that "The industry had a good day." One would think that a good day would be protecting elderly residents, not keeping them at risk.

To read more concerning this matter, go to Nursing Home Industry Unconcerned About Fire Safety.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home News

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In a previous blog, we discussed Westside Health Care Center and the Terrace at Westside and the deplorable living conditions at the facilities. This is the nursing home that local police referred to as a "crack house". New information concerning the horror at these facilities was located in the Mansfield News Journal article: Report: Health Inspectors Failed to Report Unsafe Nursing Home Conditions.

Cincinnati is the only city in Ohio that performs its own nursing home inspections. Reportedly, city health inspectors failed to report the life-threatening conditions at the facilities. Inspections from 2003 through February 2008 did not report unsafe conditions. Cincinnati City Council will have a hearing next month to determine why the facilities' unsafe conditions went undetected for so long. State health inspectors have nearly 200 pages of violations at the facilities.

The coverup was revealed on February 25 when Officer Aaron Layton went to the facility searching for a suspect. He was shocked with what he found and obtained a search warrant. Two weeks later, dozens of police officers and city and state health inspectors raided the facilities.

Among other things, the raid uncovered:

* vomit in hallways
* pipes held together with shoe string
* unsafe medication storage
* smoking near oxygen tanks
* 20% medication errors - nearly four times the acceptable rate
* no staff member trained to deal with psychological problems - although every resident had some degree of mental illness
* cigarette butts in the hallways
* mold on walls
* inaccessible fire doors
* roach-infested rooms
* soiled mattresses
* fire doors tied shut

The owner of the facilities, Abe Fischer, was fined $100,000 and faces criminal charges of violating Cincinnati's fire and building codes. Mr. Fischer maintains that the facilities are clean and safe, but that state and advocacy groups are trying to shut him down.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse

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Warren Richardson is a former resident of Anaheim Healthcare Center, a nursing home facility in California owned by Sun Mar. During his residency, Mr. Richardson developed pressure sores due to alleged understaffing. His plight prompted a lawsuit that turned into a class-action lawsuit that Sun Mar recently settled for $2 million.

Current and former residents of Sun Mar's 17 skilled nursing homes will share the settlement proceeds involving the lawsuit that alleged the company's facilities were understaffed and undertrained and that corporate officers and managers at the facilities kept budgets so low that the correct staffing and training could not be provided.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Nursing Home News

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In a previous blog, we discussed The Village at Luther Square and the problems that were occurring at the facility. On Thursday, August 21, 2008, The Village at Luther Square's license was downgraded to provisional. Further compliance issues or more deficiencies could cause the state to levy more penalities, such as prevention of participation in Medicare or Medicaid programs or revocation of the facility license.

The latest in the series of problems at the facility occurred in early July, two days apart. On July 6, 2008, a resident tipped over in a wheelchair and suffered a ruptured blood vessel in the brain and a fractured neck. The resident died the next day. Tragically, the facility staff did not use an anti-tipping device on the wheelchair and the "nursing staff failed to assess the safety of applying a waist restraint".

On July 8, 2008, a resident fell forward from a wheelchair and struck their head on the floor. Stitches were required to close the wound and the patient suffered a closed-head injury and possible concussion. Earlier that day, the resident's physician had ordered the nursing staff to reapply a waist restraint, but the order was disobeyed.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Nursing Home News , Wrongful Death

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A two month employee at Life Care at Lofland in Seaford, Delaware, has been suspended without pay and faces reckless endangerment and offensive touching charges for his actions on August 17, 2008. He currently remains free on bond.

Police were called to the facility after nursing home employees witnessed the employee twice placing a pillow over a resident's face while performing personal care services in an effort to quiet the patient. Fortunately, the victim appears to have suffered no ill-effects from the incident.

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We recently addressed the abuse of Lillian McIntye after her death in our blog. In a rapid response to the unanimous decision of the Michigan Court of Appeals last week that a dead body is not a person, lawmakers are rushing to rectify the situation. State Representative Steve Bieda announced Monday, August 18, 2008, that he would propose legislation that would modify the existing laws concerning abuse to include people who die in nursing homes.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Nursing Home News

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Collinsville Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Collinsville, Illinois has been sued for allegedly providing inadequate care for one of their residents. Florine Pinson, through her power of attorney, is alleging that the facility failed to protect Ms. Pinson from neglect, failed to notify her physician of changes in her condition, and failed to provide her with sufficient fluids. Ms. Pinson suffered from repeated urinary tract infections, urosepsis, malnutrition, and decubitus ulcers.

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Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse

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Clara August, a resident at Mereway Manor in Scottsdale, Arizona, died August 14, 2008 after suffering third-degree burns over half her body. Ms. August was sitting outside and attempting to burn a thread off of her dress with a lighter when her dress ignited. The owner of the facility, Nenita Schweicheler, saw Ms. August's dress burning and extinguished the fire. State inspectors arrived at the facility not 90 minutes later to investigate.

Michael and Nenita Schweichler, Mereway Manor's owners, have faced state scrutiny before. In March 2008, Nenita Schweichler's certificate was revoked due to failure of a required test. She has not reinstated it and is working as a facility employee. In September 2006, Michael Schweichler paid $3,500 in penalties for failing to ensure medication requirements, hiring an employee with an invalid training certificate, and failing to comply with fingerprinting requirements. In March 2006, Mr. Schweichler paid $2,900 in penalties for physically restraining a resident, being over capacity at the facility by two residents, and no service plans for clients at his other facility.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Wrongful Death

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Doris Rowe, 87, entered Evergreen Bozeman Health and Rehabilitation for a short rehabilitation stay. Instead, the stay cost Mrs. Rowe her life and her devastated family searches for answers.

On June 13, 2007, Mrs. Rowe was found unconscious and bleeding from her head. She died the next day from a cerebral hemorrhage. The fall was the fourth documented fall during her 35 day residency at the facility. She struck her head in three of those falls. The family alleges that the facility failed to prevent the falls, that the staff failed to respond to calls for restroom assistance, causing Mrs. Rowe to attempt her own toilet transfer, and that the staff was untrained and unavailable a great deal of the time. George Rowe, her husband who was also a resident for a portion of the time that Mrs. Rowe was at the facility, waited two days for a glass of water and saw the facility staff drop Mrs. Rowe twice. The lawsuit also alleges a large turnover in employees.

During a state inspection, the State of Montana found 65 pages of deficiencies, among which were restraining an ambulatory resident for no medical purpose, leaving fall-risk residents alone without restroom access, providing drugs over maximum dosage, and insufficient food to meet patient needs.

Another resident at the facility was found with head injuries consistent with a beating. As a result, Joshua Fowler, an Evergreen employee with a prior assault charge, was arrested for felony elder abuse. A lawsuit is currently pending against the facility for the incident and the family alleges that Evergreen failed to perform a background check on Mr. Fowler and failed to follow proper hiring procedures.

Interestingly, state regulations on Montana nursing homes were last updated in 1972. There have been attempts to update the state regulations, but those attempts have failed. The current laws were drafted before CNAs even existed, thus, only one aide is required for every 14 residents.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Wrongful Death

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Certified Nurse Assistant Dennis Rowe faces a felony charge of second degree elder abuse in Jasper County, Missouri. The abuse is classified as a Class B felony and Rowe faces between five and fifteen years in prison. The alleged incident occurred on April 14, 2007 at Carthage Health and Rehabilitation Center in Carthage, Missouri. The victim, a wheelchair bound elderly man suffering from a brain injury, is unable to care for himself, is "barely able to speak", and requires a continuous oxygen supply.

Rowe was showing another employee how he was able to "control" the resident. He struck the victim in the groin and slapped his face. According to an affidavit "the defendant then took the humidification canister hooked up to the victim's oxygen tube, turned the flow of oxygen 'all the way up' and turned the cannister over, forcing water into the victim's nose, causing him to choke, 'turn purple' and spit out water". Another employee had to stop Rowe from continuing with the abuse. The affidavit further states that the canister contained approximately 12 ounces of water and "according to the victim's doctor, this amount of water introduced into the nasal passages and lungs of the victim in his current physical state is sufficient to cause him serious physical injury, such as choking, drowning or pneumonia".

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Nursing Home Physical Assault

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Edward "Tiger" Monsour's family thought that his 2005 stay at Manor Health Care Center in Las Vegas, Nevada would be short. Nearly a year later, in April 2006, his family removed him from the facility via wheelchair wearing a diaper and suffering from bedsores and a gangrenous heel ulcer. He later died of sepsis.

The family filed a complaint in District Court in 2006, prior to Mr. Monsour's death, alleging that there was inadequate supervision, lack of staffing, and a wound care nurse who knew nothing about treating pressure sores. The family was awarded over $754,000.00.

Now, attorneys for Manor Health Care Center have filed motions seeking to modify the decision as well as reduce the settlement amount arguing that Nevada law does not allow heirs to recover most of the damages because the arbitrator found against the portion of the complaint that claimed wrongful death.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Wrongful Death

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As you read in our previous blog, nursing home resident Solomon Owasanoye was accused with beating his roommate to death using a clock radio. On August 14, 2008, Mr. Owasanoye, a dementia patient, pled not guilty to eight counts of first degree murder for the death of Ivory Jackson. Mr. Jackson, 78, died June 23 from his injuries.

The facility where the men resided, All Faith Pavilion, has a history of public health violations, at least two deaths linked to neglect, according to the Illinois Department of Health.

Posted by David W. Terry | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Elder Abuse , Nursing Home Abuse , Nursing Home Physical Assault , Wrongful Death

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