Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

My personal experience as a Missouri Nursing Home Lawyer is that far too many nursing home residents are overmedicated by those responsible for providing quality care. In my job I often meet with residents and their families in nursing homes. On some of those occasions, the residents simply could not wake up. Their eyes fluttered as though they were struggling to wake up and participate in the conversation happening around them. Sadly, the government has determined that my experience is not unique.

The U.S. Department of Health and Senior Services recently prepared a report entitled Medicare Atypical Antipsychotic Drug Claims For Elderly Nursing Home Residents that found that too many nursing home institutions failed to comply with regulations designed to prevent overmedication. It is well known that prescribing antipsychotic medication to elderly residents with dementia is potentially lethal, yet 88% of these individuals receive such prescriptions.

Family members must make certain that they know what medications their loved one is receiving. They must educate themselves on the medications and the proper dosages. They must regularly ask questions of the caregivers and insist upon answers. Family members must know what the possible side effects are and should closely monitor their loved one for any signs of side effects.

Why would a nursing home overmedicate a resident? First, to be fair to the nursing home industry, many times the overmedication is completely unintentional. Elderly residents are more much more susceptible to overmedication than are younger people. The second reason is an indictment of the nursing home industry. Overmedicated residents do complain and are, therefore, easier to care for with a reduced staff. Residents who ask to be taken to the restroom, or who need more water or need help walking down the hallway often require assistance from staff members. When a nursing home operates on reduced staff (as most nursing homes do) drugged residents are easier to manage than those who are alert and active.

If you are concerned about the care your loved one is receiving in a nursing home, call our St. Louis personal injury lawyer David Terry for a free consultation at 1-888-317-2525.

An Indiana nursing home was fined after a resident was reportedly abandoned on a facility bus in dangerously cold weather. Eighty-seven year old Albert Howell, a resident of Ambassador Healthcare, an Indiana nursing home, was reportedly left on a facility bus for over five hours in 39 degree weather.

Howell was taken to a dental appointment on March 2 in the Ambassador Healthcare bus. He was apparently left on the bus for five-and-a-half hours on the bus before being found around 9:45 p.m. Howell's family is appalled and can't figure out how the incident happened. According one family member, "It got cold and he rubbed his hands together to stay warm. He just got over pneumonia two weeks earlier, so he was very lucky that he didn't get sick again.

Ambassador Healthcare owner Tim Sadler had this to say about the incident: "It was unfortunately a medical condition of the driver that led to this happening. We feel terrible about what happened - for the driver and the resident. The driver was terminated, but he was in the hospital for several days after that for observation."

The March 2, 2011 incident netted the facility an immediate jeopardy citation and a fine of $4,100. The facility was required to submit a plan that ensures resident accountability when leaving the facility. Now, facility drivers are required to sign out residents and nurses are required to sign in residents upon their return. At the end of each shift, maintenance workers are required to walk through the bus and sign off on a check sheet. Additionally, someone from the laundry staff is also required to perform a walk through and sign a check sheet.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. If you suspect that your loved one may be a victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, contact Missouri Nursing Home Abuse Attorney David Terry for a free no-obligation consultation at 1-888-317-2525 or 314-878-9797.

It appears that Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, who took office in 2009, has not made the health and welfare of Indiana's most vulnerable citizens a priority in his office. According to a recent IndyStar.com article, the Indiana Attorney General has filed complaints in a mere 2% -- or six cases -- of the 300 inspection reports that the Health Department provided the Attorney General's Office in the past five years. Zoeller himself received 40 reports in 2009 and failed to file any complaints. According to Zoeller's deputy, the AG's office only files a complaint when the nursing home administrator is personally responsible for the problem. But that leads to the question: isn't the nursing home administrator personally responsible for the health and welfare of all residents under his/her care?

For instance, a rape was reported in June 2008 at a Marion nursing home. State health inspectors and local police investigated the allegations and found that the assault could have been prevented. Reportedly, the accused resident was a paroled sex offender - and the nursing home administrator knew of his sex offender status since he had been admitted approximately three months earlier. The administrator failed to share the information with facility nurses and aides and did not care plan to protect defenseless residents from the offender. Was a complaint filed in this instance? No.

A January 2009 report revealed that heating units in 26 rooms of a Muncie nursing home required replacement. While the administrator was aware of the problem, residents were left to suffer in rooms where the temperatures had dipped to the mid-50s - in the middle of winter. Did Zoeller take disciplinary action? No.

A October 2009 inspection of a west-central Indiana nursing home facility revealed that facility staff failed to protect its residents from development pressure sores. According to facility policy, the administrator was charged with monitoring procedure for treating wounds. Inspectors found that staff was failing to assess the sores. Any disciplinary action? No.

In Indiana, the Attorney General is the only state official charged with bringing disciplinary charges against nursing home administrators. Since 2000, 24 administrators have had three or more poor inspection reports sent to the Attorney General's Office within a four year period - sometimes from different facilities. Five of those administrators were referred for discipine three times in one year. Of the 24 affected, only two were brought to task.

Zoeller's office defended its practices by stating that administrators are sometimes informally reprimanded without a public complaint filing. According to an The Star, a review of the inspection reports reportedly showed that Zoeller and his predecessor failed to take disciplinary action against administrator even when the findings suggested that the administrator could bear some responsibility for the facility's problems.

Another nursing home owned by Eric Rothner, an Illinois nursing home operator, has come under the scrutiny of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid for poor performance.

Sebo's Nursing and Rehabiltiation Center in Hobart, Indiana was recently placed on the "Special Focus Facilities" list kept by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Nursing home facilities are placed on the "Special Focus Facilities (SFF)" list after they have demonstrated a pattern of serious problems over a period of time without adequate corrective action. According to Medicare.gov, "a Special Focus Facility is a nursing home with a recent history of persistent poor quality of care, as indicated by the findings of state or Federal inspection teams. Based on inspection findings for the most recent three-year period, CMS selects a group of nursing homes with the worst repeated inspections as SFFs. Sometimes a nursing home will fix a sufficient number of problems in order to pass one inspection, only to fail the next one. Often, many of these same problems show up in inspections again and again. This is a sign that the nursing home didn’t address the underlying problems that were causing these repeated serious deficiencies. Many SFFs respond to the recognition of their past poor performance by making concerted efforts to improve. CMS records indicate that approximately 50% of SFFs significantly improve their quality of care within the subsequent 30 months."

In fact, two years ago, Sebo's scored a 956 report card grade in the Indiana State Department of Health's Nursing Home Report Card, the worst score in the state. Their current score of 769 remains almost four times higher than the average Indiana nursing home score of 177.

Eric Rothner has owned the nursing home facility since 1996 and Sebo's problems appear to date back to at least 1999. Between 2007 and 2009, sixteen substantiated complaints were received on the facility. Immediate jeopardy citations were assessed to the facility in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009.

When asked about possible changes at the facility, Monti Montgomery, Sebo's new Administrator as of December 2009, said, "Directives come from the home office and I have no comment on those." The "home" office is Rothner's Extended Care Clinical.

Rothner's facilities are not strangers to the "Special Focus Facilties" list. His facility, Northlake Nursing and Rehabiltiation Center in Merrillville, Indiana, resided on the "Special Focus Facilities" list before closing earlier this month after being decertified from participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Another of his facilities, South Shore Nursing and Rehabiltiation Center in Chicago, remains on the list. Rothner, his family members, and their related companies have interests in nearly 24 facilities in four states.

Fifty-one year old Mary Ann Jackson suffered a stroke and was hospitalized twice. Eventually, she was admitted to Northlake Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home in Merrillville, Indiana, in October 2008 for care. Instead of receiving quality care, reportedly Jackson suffered neglect.

When Jackson was admitted to the facility, she had one bedsore. At the end of her residency at Northlake in November 2009, that single bedsore had spread into massive sores on her buttocks and legs. According to her sister, Shelli Jackson, "If they (Northlake staff) saw us coming, they would camouflage the bedsores with bandages, so we actually thought she was getting better. But she got way worse instead. Nearly her whole behind was gone. You could see muscles and ligaments down to the bone. Her bedsores were so bad she was stuck in a fetal position with her legs glued together."

In November 2009, Jackson was transferred to The Methodist Hospitals in Merrillville, Indiana, where doctors wanted to amputate both legs. Refusing to accept this diagnosis, her family transferred her to a hospital in Indianapolis and later to another nursing home facility located in Indianapolis, where her condition is now much better. According to the Director of Social Services and Admissions in Lawrence Manor Healthcare Center, Rick Lipscomb, "She had one foot in the grave. I don't know how she didn't die. I've seen animal carcasses on the side of the road that looked better than when she arrived here from another nursing home...People should go to jail for what happened to her." Reportedly, it was estimated that Jackson would be dead within one month.

Northlake was inspected in December 2009 on Jackson's case and was found deficient when they failed to contact Jackson's physician concerning her high blood pressure, vomiting, heart failure, and significant weight loss.

James Ribovich was another Northlake victim. He died of a heart attack on June 9, 2006. According to a March 1, 2006 lawsuit filed by his daughter, someone at Northlake found an abnormality of his penis. He was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, as well as sepsis, and was "found to have extensive gangrene of the penis and scrotum requiring a wide excision of the gangrene of those areas". According to a state investigation, Northlake failed to meet its duty to care for James Ribovich.

Lionel Malik lived at Northlake for six years before dying in August 2009 of respiratory failure. Malik had a tracheal tube that he consistently tried to bite out. Reportedly, the mouthpiece used to protect Malik disappeared after he was admitted to Northlake. His daughter, Chantel Hoskins, examined his mouth one day and found his teeth embedded in his tongue, which had to be removed from his tongue by a dentist. She alleges that when visiting on the weekends, she would find no one at the nurse's stations and no one answering call lights. "Once they'd get someone in a wheelchair, that person would sit there all day until the next shift. They'd fall asleep and slip out. His ankle was shattered and nobody could tell us why."

Northlake is set to close today, March 15, 2010 after an emergency closure order was issued on February 1, 2010. The order was the result of the facility's consistent failure to correct complaints concerning its care.

An Indiana nursing home faces closure Monday after an Administrative Law Judge confirmed the legality of the State of Indiana's decision to relocate residents and deny the facility a permanent operating license. The facility, Northlake Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Merrillville, Indiana, had been working under a probationary operating license and had been issued three probationary operating licenses - the maximum under Indiana law. The closure will affect approximately 13 residents remaining in the 150 bed facility.

Owner Eric Rothner, who owns at least 24 nursing home facilities in four states, contested the recent ruling and is currently seeking a judicial hearing in Superior Court in Indianapolis and an order halting the closure. According to Rothner, "If the state is out to get you, Jesus Christ could be your administrator and the Mother Mary your director of nursing and you're still dead."

According to the "Nursing Home Compare" section on the U.S. Department of Health and Senior Services' site and the Indiana State Department of Health's "Nursing Home Report Cards", some of Rothner's facilities are among the lowest ranking in the state after being cited for poor quality of care and patient safety violations. According to one resident at Northlake, "...I have no choice in the matter. If I did, I wouldn't be leaving. The guys that own this place didn't want to fix it up and just kept raking in the dough."

Rothner's Indiana facilities are not his only facilities currently under scrutiny. The Illinois Department of Public Health announced recently that it would remove the last residents from Rothner's Somerset Place by March 12, 2010. That facility was ordered to close on that date after the facility received repeated citations for patient abuse, violence, and poor quality of care. You can read more about that closing here.

Brian Dillman

Bryan Dillman is 6'1" and weighs in at 225 pounds. He was recently arrested for felony battery on a defenseless nursing home resident after police were summoned to Good Samaritan Home and Rehabilitation Center in Oakland City, Indiana.

Reportedly, Dillman, a CNA for the facility, was found sleeping in a recliner in a resident's room by facility nurse Sharlet Sillz. Sillz allegedly told Dillman that she would not report him because "she knows that he is tired and that he has kids". The room's resident, DeeAnn Hoffman was undergoing a test and was not present when Dillman was discovered sleeping. Hoffman subsequently returned to her room and was screaming "please don't hurt me" and a smacking noise was heard coming from her room.

Dillman emerged from the room and walked quickly down the hall. Sillz entered Hoffman's room and Hoffman told Sillz that Dillman tried to choke her and hit her in the face multiple times after she told him she was ready for a shower. Hoffman alleged that Dillman jumped out of the chair, got behind her, and put both hands around her neck, choking her.

Dillman alleges that he did not touch Hoffman and that he had not been asleep, just watching television. Dillman was booked into the county jail, where he posted bond. His first court hearing was October 5, 2009.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us with any questions or concerns at (888) 317-2525 or visit us on our website at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

Ismael Golden is wanted by the police on a misdemeanor warrant for sexual battery on a nursing home resident and by the Medicaid Fraud Unit.

Golden, 29, allegedly molested a 55 year-old male nursing home resident suffering from stroke, paralysis, depression, and heart failure on or about February 16, 2009 at the Golden Living Centers in Merrillville, Indiana. He was charged on March 16, 2009, but was never arrested.

In mid-August 2009, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller issued subpoenas to local health providers to determine if any facility may have hired him. Allegedly, Golden was known to have used aliases in the past.

To date, Golden cannot be located and a warrant for his arrest has been issued.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us with any questions or concerns at (888) 317-2525 or on our website at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

The Fox 7 news team visited Columbia Healthcare Center mid-morning on Monday, August 3, 2009. Shortly after the visit, the facility's doors were locked and a "Closed to the Public" sign was hanging on the door. Why? The Evansville, Indiana facility reportedly closed for the third time in two weeks due to an alleged scabies outbreak. Scabies is a contagious skin infection transferred through close contact.

While the facility refuses to confirm or deny the allegations, employees and residents of the facility acknowledge that scabies have been an issue at the facility for at least a month. Allegedly, one facility visitor said he'd heard that the nursing home had known about the scabies problem since March 2009. Family members of residents and employees say they've heard between five and sixteen patients have contracted scabies. Fox 7's informant alleges that the nursing home told employees to keep information about the scabies outbreak under wraps and not to discuss it with media or residents.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us at (888) 317-2525 or visit us on our website at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

A complaint concerning quality of care at Royal Oaks Health Care and Rehabilitation prompted a January 2009 nursing home inspection, which revealed thirteen federal regulation violations. Fortunately, no residents suffered actual harm due to the facility's violations, but the facility must take immediate corrective action.

The individual who lodged the complaint against Royal Oaks alleged that there was insufficient staff-to-resident ratio and not enough staff to ensure resident safety at the facility. The complaintant who was transported to Union Hospital in January 2009 due to seriously infected bedsores that originated at the facility. The resident also had contracted sepsis, which is a serious body infection spread through the bloodstream.

The survey, ninety pages in all, seemed endless. Among other things, the facility was cited for failing to give residents proper treatment to prevent new bedsores or heal existing ones, failing to have a program to prevent the spread of infection, and failing to ensure nurse aides have the skills to care for the residents. Eleven out of eighteen CNAs observed providing care did not demonstrate to state investigators competent skills in handwashing, use of mechanical lifts, and handling of Foley catheters and urinary drainage tubing,. The facility was also cited for failing to "ensure a sanitary environment in that seven of seventeen CNAs observed providing care failed to remove gloves and/or wash their hands once contaminated."

Other areas where federal standards were not met included:

- Ensuring each resident entering the facility without a catheter does not receive one unless necessary;

- Ensuring that residents who cannot complete activities of daily living receive help with eating/drinking, grooming, and hygiene;

- Ensuring that the facility has enough nurses to care for the residents in a way to maximize the resident's well-being; and

- Ensuring the facility has the proper drugs and other similar products available, which are needed every day and in emergencies and give them out properly.

According to the new system instituted by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the facility is a one-star facility, which indicates a "much below average" facility.

Her family placed her at Hillcrest Centre for Health and Rehabilitation for care. Her family trusted that the Hillcrest facility would provide her with a safe environment. The thirty-three year old resident, who suffers from cerebral palsy, is unable to walk, feed, or talk. Her family believes that she was sexually assaulted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 by another resident.

According to the police report, an employee found the 65 year old man in the woman's bed while employees were making their rounds around 6:45 a.m. There was evidence of sexual molestation.

Her family is outraged. There are monitors on her doors and a baby monitor at the nurse's station for her protection. Her family is now questioning why didn't any of the employees hear it?

The man has been removed from the facility.

Arden Courts, a HCR ManorCare facility, has been slapped with the worst citation possible from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. The "Type A" citation was issued for placing its residents at risk of death or injury. It carries a fine of up to $5,000.

Seven residents of Arden Courts, a Louisville, Kentucky personal care home that specializes in caring for individuals suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was cited for failing to provide proper care for seven residents. Those residents suffered from repeated falls, some of which resulted in lacerations and abrasions; one resident was unresponsive for several minutes following the fall. Two residents developed pressure ulcers that were not identified or treated and four experienced weight loss of 24 to 39 pounds in six to nine months. The state alleges that the residents affected needed more skilled care and assistance than available at the facility. Personal care facilities typically accept individuals who are able to manage most of their own activities of daily living, such as eating, bathing, and dressing. Facility staff is available to provide some assistance, but typically residents should be able to ambulate alone. All seven residents affected were noted to be "unable to manage their activties of daily living and required total assistance from the facility staff". One resident was unable to get out of bed without assistance, three could not move their own wheelchairs, and not one of them would have been able to exit the facility in an emergency.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us at 1 (888) 317-2525 or visit us at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

Karen Buck, a former certified nursing assistant (CNA) at Williamsburg Village nursing home, now doing business as Golden Living Center, faces an April 2009 trial on the felony charge of punching a 94 year old nursing home resident in the mouth. Buck allegedly punched Vera Talbott on June 2, 2007 after Ms. Talbott spit at her.

Ms. Talbott entered the facility after suffering a stroke. Her daughter visited her daily. One Saturday, her daughter found Ms. Talbott with a red face, food sitting in front of her, and drugged almost unconscious. The facility refused to tell her what was wrong with her mother's face. After her daughter left the facility, a nurse called her and told her they were sending her mother to the hospital and that a CNA had hit her. A detective later told her daughter that a fellow CNA saw Buck "slug and slap" Ms. Talbott in the face two or three times. Ms. Talbott suffered a black eye and other facial bruises.

Ms. Talbott died on September 2, 2007.

Nursing home resident, Rodney Kenney, died after catching fire while sitting in his wheelchair at Regency Place, an Indiana nursing home. On May 26, 2008, Mr. Kenney was found with a cigarette lighter near his wheelchair, even though he was not a smoker. He was, however, an Alzheimer patient who required substantial supervision. Shortly after Mr. Kenney caught fire, state regulations swooped in to investigate. Amazingly, upon their arrival, state employees were informed that no one was in charge. As a result of the state investigation, the facility was cited for improperly supervising Mr. Kenney, as well as medication errors related to a second resident, inadequate staffing, and inadequate screening for employees. The facility faces fines and possible denial of Medicare and Medicaid payments for new admissions after August 19, 2008.