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.

Two New York Certified Nursing Assistants have been fired from their jobs at Northgate Health Care Facility after compromising residents under their care.

Alicia Clemens and Gloria Maxwell reportedly cared for a married couple who shared a room at the facility. According to a state health department report, the women brought a wheelchair-bound woman into the married couple's room and placed her in bed between the couple and tried to get the husband to inappropriately touch the woman. The husband, who is legally blind and suffers from dementia, touched the woman on the shoulder, who immediately told him to stop. Clemens reportedly took cell phone photographs of the couple in bed.

Clemens and Maxwell were fired after the April 14, 2010 incident. A third nursing assistant, Heather Whitcomb, and a certified nursing assistant trainee, Jaclyn Cannon, were also fired. Whitcomb and Cannon saw the abuse occurring and failed to report it to their supervisors.

Elderly nursing home residents are easy targets for sexual predators since they often are unable, due to physical or mental impairments, to ward off a sexual attack. Sadly, their impairments often prevent them from even reporting a sexual assault. Families with loved ones in nursing home facilities need to be aware that sexual assault does occur in nursing homes and should be prepared for both prevention and detection of sexual assault. If you have a family member or loved one in a nursing home facility, protect your loved one by:

• visiting your loved one at different times, including occasional visits in the middle of the night. Don't be predictable. Most sexual assaults occur at night.
• opening the door to your family member's room if it is closed when it shouldn't be; don't be afraid to "barge in".
• knowing the name and habits of all employees with access to your loved one.
• watching for evidence of other residents who may be sexually inappropriate.
• talking to the facility administrator about whether proper criminal background checks were accomplished on all staff members.

Illinois Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Attorney David Terry is experienced in handling cases of nursing home sexual abuse. If you suspect that a family member or loved one in a nursing home facility may be the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a facility staff member, contact David Terry for a FREE no-obligation consultation at 1-888-317-2525 or 314-878-9797.

To obtain a FREE copy David Terry's book, 5 Things You Must Know About Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect in Illinois, click here.

Albany County, a New York nursing home facility, was cited for placing their residents in an "immediate jeopardy" situation recently after state health department investigators conducted an inspection between February 21 and February 28.

Reportedly, state health department investigators found unlocked high-voltage electrical boxes in two of seven residential units on February 22. According to a March 7, 2011 letter sent to County Legislature Chairman Daniel McCoy, "live electrical parts were located 5 feet 10 inches from the floor" in "unlocked relay control panel boxes in areas frequented by cognitively impaired residents. Additionally, the facility lacked a system to ensure these dangerous electrical components were secured from resident access."

According to Mary Duryea, county spokeswoman, "All of the locks were changed on all the electrical boxes in the facility and a monitoring protocol was instituted to make sure the boxes are regularly checked to see that they're secured. All of the locks were replaced the next day." Duryea further stated that the county was considering challenging the "immediate jeopardy" deficiency.

A New York nursing assistant was arrested on November 20 for reportedly sexually abusing an elderly nursing home resident under his care.

Thirty-year-old Paul Scott was charged with sexual abuse in the first degree of a physically helpless person in the alleged sexual assault of a seventy-seven year-old female resident, who suffers from dementia. The alleged incident happened at Hawthorn Health Multicare Center and was reported by another employee.

Scott pleaded not guilty to the charges, posted $10,000 bail, and was released. He is due back in court on December 3, 2010. If convicted of the abuse charge, Scott faces up to seven years in prison.

Sexual abuse of nursing home residents is a growing problem. Family members should never assume their loved ones are immune to this type of assault. Every single one of the elderly residents I have represented who have been sexually assaulted in a nursing home never thought it would happen to them. It is a vile and cowardly crime. If your loved one is in a nursing home, you can make it less likely that they will be the victim of sexual abuse by following these simple steps:

1. Visit regularly.

2. Visit at different times - don't let employees learn your schedule.

3. Know the characteristics of other residents. If you believe your family member is at risk of assault by another resident, request that one be kept away from the other.

4. Regularly check your loved one for bruises or soreness in the groin area. This is always uncomfortable, but it may prevent your loved one from being chronically abused.

5. Ask the nursing home administrator if any residents or employees have been previously disciplined or had legal trouble related to sexually inappropriate behavior.

6. Be vigilant. If you believe your loved one has been victimized, complain to the appropriate people and make sure a thorough investigation is completed.

If necessary, contact a nursing home abuse and neglect attorney and ask for advice. Missouri and Illinois nursing home attorney David Terry regularly represents family members whose loved ones have been neglected or abused in a nursing home. For a free consultation, call us at 1-888-317-2525.

A New York nurse was caught red-handed abusing a defenseless nursing home resident by a granny cam.

Fifty-six year old Jessie Joiner, a nurse at William Benenson Rehabilitation Pavilion in Queens, New York, was seen pushing a medication cart on March 20, 2010 around 9:00 p.m. when she suddenly left her cart and walked toward a dementia resident sitting in a wheelchair. The video reportedly shows Joiner grabbing the wheelchair, jerking it sharply to the left, and the eighty-five year old resident crashing to the floor, breaking her hip.

The nurse was seen walking past the severely injured resident twice before leaving the area. The resident is quite obviously injured and in need of assistance. According to video footage, the resident was lying on the floor for more than two minutes before another employee arrived. For over a minute after his arrival, he did nothing - not even reassuring the resident that assistance was coming. Finally, he was seen speaking to the resident.

Three full minutes after the fall, Joiner was seen returning and calls for help. A third employee arrives and the three employees approach the resident - more than four minutes after her initial fall. According to the Attorney General's complaint, Joiner admitted knocking the resident from her wheelchair and failing to assist her. The complaint alleges that Joiner failed to report the incident until another staff member saw the resident.

Joiner faces charges of endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person and willful violation of health laws. She has pleaded not guilty.

The New York Department of Health found 23 deficiencies at Uihlein Nursing Home, a New York nursing home facility, nine of which "posed immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety".

In one instance, in July 2009, an elderly male resident was given ten times the normal dosage of Xanax. The man was prescribed 0.125 mg of the drug to be administered on July 24 and July 25. Instead, he was given two 1.25 mg on the assigned days. Two nurses found that they could not rouse the resident and reported that he was cold to touch. Admitted to the hospital, he was found to "have had a benzodiazepine overdose with coma". He later died.

The Health Department also found other problems with prescribing and adminstering drugs at the facility. The facility was cited for three Level 4 deficiencies, the most serious level, in pharmacy services. The facility was also cited for four "immediate jeopardy" deficiencies in nursing home administration when the facility failed to hire a properly licensed administrator and the facility failed to choose a doctor to be its medical director, among other things.

The facility was fined $116,150 by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, but because the facility waived a hearing, it was granted a 35% reduction in the fine and only paid $75,497.

On March 31, 2010, fourteen nurses and nurse aides at Northwoods Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility, located outside of Troy, New York were charged with endangering the welfare of a resident plus felony falsification of business records. They were also charged with multiple misdemeanor violations of health laws.

Using video surveillance, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo showed a six week period of alleged neglect of the resident. According to a news release from Cuomo's office, the staff "routinely failed to turn and position an immobile resident, often leaving the resident in the same position for an entire shift. Nursing staff failed to administer medications, as well as treat the resident's bed sores. The footage also revealed that the aides charged failed to check the resident for incontinence or change undergarments for long periods of time." The report continued, saying, "In addition, the resident's medical records show that the defendants falsified medical records to conceal their neglect. A physician assistant also created a phony record of an annual medical exam that never happened."

Six LPNs, seven CNAs, and a physician assistant were charged on March 31, 2010.
Nine nurses and nurse aides currently working at the facility are being suspended until the charges are resolved.

Northwoods is no stranger to problems at the facility. The facility lost federal funding last year after facility workers routinely ignored the patient assistance buzzer. In January 2010, a male nurse aide at the facility pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 78 year old female resident in 2008.

A New York jury handed down a massive $19 million verdict recently for damages in response to a nursing home neglect lawsuit filed by the family of the resident.

Seventy-six year old John Danzy was a resident of Cypress Hills nursing home for just nine months before his family removed him from their care. When he entered the facility, he weighed 237 pounds and was able to ambulate on his own. On the day he was moved, he weighed just 148 pounds and had more than 20 bedsores all over his body.

Mr. Danzy should have been moved every two hours to help prevent bedsores, but records revealed that the facility only moved Mr. Danzy every four hours, if he was moved at all. An FBI expert testified at trial that skin-check notes showing "G" (representing good) were marked over with a "B" (for broken), as the facility tried to cover up that it missed Mr. Danzy's sores.

The jury deliberated for two days following the four week trial before finding that Mr. Danzy was provided substandard care. $3.75 million was awarded for pain and suffering and $15 million was awarded for punitive damages.

Sadly, Mr. Danzy died from an infection caused by the bedsores six months after leaving Cypress Hills.

Mount Loretto Nursing Home, a nursing home facility located in Amsterdam, New York, was hit with a $77,610 fine after a January Department of Health Investigation found several deficiencies that could have placed residents in immediate jeopardy.

The fine was levied following an investigation that revealed the following:

- An employee who saw two other employees deliberately shaking and stuttering while caring for a resident suffering from Parkinson's Disease;
- Incontinent residents reported not being cared for promptly;
- Residents reported medications not being provided on time; and
- A resident reported that an employee threatened to strangle her.

Facility staff reported that inadequate staffing levels attributed to care delay due to large turnover from "burn-out" and employees calling in sick. Staff members also complained that "Chicago" controlled staffing levels, without being aware of what was needed. One staff member allegedly "stated that often there were only three [certified nursing assistants] on a unit and that she realized it was very difficult to provide quality care to the residents."

CNA Latoya Harding was arraigned recently on charges of fourth degree grand larceny, first degree offering a false instrument for filing, and second degree criminal possession of a forged instrument after she stole from a nursing home resident at Blossom South, the New York nursing home facility where she worked.

Harding reportedly stole a credit card from a 90 year old dementia resident and used it to pay household bills and make personal purchases from Wal-Mart. She also made several cash withdrawals. In all, her theft totaled approximately $2,434.57.

After theft allegations were made, Harding was fired from the nursing home facility. She reportedly filed for unemployment benefits and submitted an application for benefits using the forged signature of a Blossom South employee and claimed that she had been laid off from Blossom South. The application had clearly stated that only employers could complete the form.

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

We discussed Shane Spooner, a former nurse's aide at Clinton County Nursing Home in New York, in previous blogs.

For amusement, Spooner took a photograph of the genitals of a 49 year-old traumatic brain injury resident and sent it via text message to a female co-worker. The woman reported the incident to supervisors and Spooner was eventually terminated.

After a police investigation, Spooner was charged with second degree unlawful surveillance and first degree dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image. He plead guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of attempted first degree of an unlawful surveillance image. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail on October 23, 2009 for taking the photograph, placed on three years' probation, and fined $500.

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.

Violations of privacy. Failure to have infection control program in place. Failure to protect residents from resident-on-resident abuse. Failure to provide adequate supervision. Failure to label medications, failure to discard expired medications and keep medications locked up. All of these deficiencies were recently assessed to the Veterans' Home at Montrose in Montrose, New York.

In a thirty-seven page Health Department Report from August 2009, the Veterans' Home at Montrose was cited for a variety of deficiences that endangered its residents. Among the deficiencies:

- Failure to protect a resident from another resident with a documented history of aggression - A CNA wheeled the agitated resident out of a cafeteria into a common area after giving him his medication. The resident then wheeled over to another resident, grabbed his arm and pulled it back very hard, fracturing the resident's arm. A nurse interviewed about the incident said she was unable to provide one-on-one supervision because the unit was so busy.

- Seven residents were observed being treated with the door left open. Staff did not use proper hand-washing technique and did not disinfect the instruments used during the treatment for the appropriate amount of time.

- The facility failed to have a supervising physician and internal oversight.

The facility was required to pay $36,000 for its deficiencies.

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.

Patricia Henry holding photographs of Verda Henry, her mother

By all accounts, seventy-three year old Verda Henry was an active senior in 2005, working as a cashier at Eastchester Senior Center, family chef, baby-sitter for her great-grandchildren, and foster mother. When she fell and injured her arm in 2005, she went to Sutton Park Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation for therapy and assumed that she would be home in about a month. She died at the nursing home in 2007, after her requests to go home were repeatedly denied.

Patricia Henry, Verda Henry's daughter, and her children visited Verda every day, sometimes staying as many as eight hours. Patricia Henry said, "There would be a nurse and she would run between floors and they had no time. Nobody checks on her. Nobody feeds her. Every time we asked to take her home there was a reason we couldn't." Verda Henry soon became so weak she couldn't even move.

Patricia Henry found it accidentally - a huge bedsore on her mother's tail bone - when she was changing her mother's gown. Within days, the sore, already in an advanced stage, was infected. The last words Patricia Henry heard from her mother were screams as doctors scraped at the blackened skin. "You could put your whole hand down in her back. You could see the bones and spinal cord. It was like raw meat. Mommy screamed until she couldn't scream no more," Henry said.

Patricia Henry filed a lawsuit against Sutton Park Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation after her mother's 2007 death and filed a lawsuit last week against South Shore Medical Center, a facility across the street from the nursing home.

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

Carolyn Wheeler, a recreational leader at Somers Manor Nursing Home in Somers, New York, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person in the second degree, which is a felony, and sexual abuse in the second degree, a misdemeanor.

Wheeler allegedly returned to the facility on August 17, 2009, while off-duty and was found by nursing staff engaging in sexual contact with a 60 year-old male resident suffering from a severe mental defect.

Wheeler was arraigned and remanded to the Westchester County Jail in lieu of $3,000 bail.

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.

We discussed Northwoods Care and Rehab in a previous blog after a facility employee was arrested for sexually abusing a helpless seventy-eight year-old resident at the facility. Now, the facility is in the crosshairs of New York's Department of Public Health.

Federal officials are refusing Medicare and Medicaid payments for new admissions to the facility after receiving reports that facility employees consistently ignored residents' calls and there was not enough staff to dispense medication. State inspectors revealed problems, some of which may have been considered "immediate jeopardy", to federal authorities.

An ombudsman from the Red Cross found problems at the facility during a visit on August 5, 2009. The ombudsman found a resident who desperately needed assistance going to the restroom. The resident turned on a call light to request help. A nurse came into his room, turned off the light, and said she would get him some assistance. Fifteen minutes later, the ombudsman again turned on the light, but it was turned off again.

On July 15, 2009, the facility was cited for failing to give medications, including insulin and anti-seizure drugs to thirteen residents in a 24 hour period.

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.

A nurse aide at the Waterview Hills Rehabilitation and Nursing Home in New York has pleaded guilty to tying a resident to her wheelchair with a bedsheet while he napped.

Pierre Obas, 72, pleaded guilty to violating public health law involving abuse, neglect, and mistreatment of a person in the May 16, 2008 incident. Obas has to surrender his nurse aide certificate and is forbidden to work as a nurse aide for one year.

The nursing home resident, who was 83 years-old and unable to walk or care for herself without assistance, requested assistance several times during the night of May 16, 2008. According to video surveillance, around 2:30 a.m., Obas tied her to her wheelchair, took her to a darkened common room, and napped while she sat, bound, in the wheelchair for approximately an hour.

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.

Former Nurse Aide Shane Spooner has been charged in connection with photographing a disabled nursing home resident in a sexually explicit manner.

On March 28, 2009, Spooner allegedly used his mobile phone to photograph the genitals of a 49 year old resident, suffering from a traumatic brain injury. Spooner transmitted the photograph in a text message to another facility employee, who was not working at the time. Spooner admitted to an investigator from the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit that he took and sent the photograph to amuse himself.

Spooner is charged with second degree unlawful surveillance and first degree dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image, both felonies. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

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

We discussed this matter in our previous blog.

In May 2009, John Ette, a former CNA at Adirondack Medical Center's Mercy nursing home in New York, was arrested for physically abusing an 88 year-old nursing home resident. Ette admitted to state investigators that he hit the bedridden resident in the face, grabbed her arm, and shoved her into her wheelchair. She suffered severe facial bruising and a broken collarbone. The woman's injuries were discovered the next morning by facility staff.

Ette pleaded guilty on July 22, 2009 to endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person and was sentenced to time served. Ette spent approximately two months in jail following his arrest. He was also ordered to take an anger management class.

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.

We discussed the tragic situation of the alleged rape of a mentally disabled nursing home resident at Shore Winds nursing home in a previous blog.

Kipper Stevens, a former licensed practical nurse at the facility, was arrested and arraigned on July 15, 2009 on charges of rape and endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and his bail was set at $1,500.

Stevens alleges that he and the alleged victim, a mentally disabled woman in her 50s, were involved in a romantic relationship. "Our relationship started out as friends, but...I know that I should not have been involved romantically with a patient, but it just happened. We were two consenting adults having a relationship, and at no time was it forcible. I want people to know although this was improper, it was nothing malicious." According to authorities, the woman was incapable of making a decisions such as this. A co-worker of Stevens witnessed the alleged abuse and reported it to management.

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

We discussed the possible sexual assault of a disabled nursing home resident by a facility employee at Shore Winds nursing home in Rochester, New York in a previous blog.

When Shore Winds was contacted in December 2008 by News 10NBC, a man answering the call told them "nothing happened". Despite the nursing home's initial denials of the rape allegation in December 2008, Kipper Stevens, a nurse at the facility, was charged with one count of second degree rape and one count of endangering the welfare of a disabled person. He has since been fired from the nursing home.

A complaint lodged with the New York State Department of Health around Christmas 2008 alleged that a nursing home employee had sexual contact with a resident. The Department of Health investigated the complaint and determined that the complaint was serious enough to warrant a full investigation. According to Assistant District Attorney Matthew Schwartz, "He's accused of having sexual intercourse with the victim while in his position as a licensed nurse. The victim is one of the patients at the facility he was working at."

He plead not guilty to the charges in Court on July 15, 2009. He is scheduled to reappear in Court on July 21, 2009.

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