Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse/Neglect

A 44-year-old woman who suffered permanent brain damage as a result of poor care she received in an El Cajon County owned nursing home has been awarded $1.6 million in a court settlement. Ruth Lomeo suffered severe brain injuries after she was given excessive pain medication at Edgemoor Geriatric Hospital in Santee. Staff at the nursing home also waited 20 minutes to call 911 after Lomeo began to have breathing problems. Lomeo sustained brain damage from lack of oxygen. Our source for this blog was a news report in the San Diego Union Tribune.

Nursing home officials contended that they had done nothing wrong and said that the nursing home had corrected any existing deficiencies. But the point is, those corrections, if they happened, came too late for Ruth Lomeo. In her case, a horrible damage had already been done. Lomeo, a lupus patient, was sent to the nursing home for recovery. Instead, her brain injury has left her with the mental ability of a 5-year-old, unable to care for herself or communicate with her family members. Further, she is going to need 24/7 care for the rest of her life.

The county’s attorney says the nursing home made a “business decision” to settle this case. They were simply concerned that this case could have cost them a lot more if it had gone before a jury. The problem with many nursing homes is that they are becoming more of a business and less of a service. They are becoming increasingly conscious of their profits, which is certainly important. Without profit, any business will cease to exist. However, it is unethical and inhumane for a business, especially one that cares for vulnerable, frail individuals, to put profits over the precious lives of the people they care for.
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I came across a news report in the Des Moines Register that shows how nursing homes with a history of abuse, negligence and other past violations receive hundreds of millions of your taxpayer dollars as bonuses. According to this eye-opening investigative report, a review of 81 bonus payment programs in 36 states shows that some nursing homes are collecting “quality-of-care bonuses” handed out by the same federal agency that considers them to be below-average caregivers.

In addition to this nonsense, more than 60 existing bonus programs help nursing homes do what they are already required to do under the law such as pay minimum wage or install fire safety sprinklers for the safety of their residents. The newspaper gives the example of Grace Living Center in Norman, Oklahoma, which earned almost $96,000 in bonuses over the last one year and is considered a “five-star” nursing home by the state. Still, it has been cited for more violations than the state and national average. What’s more – Medicare ranks the home “below average” on 11 out of 19 national quality measures.
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Extendicare, a large Minnesota nursing home corporation, is facing a federal class-action lawsuit from its customers who are alleging that it used deceptive marketing to entice seniors into facilities that were often cited for deficiencies and sub-standard care. According to a news report in the Pioneer Press, the nursing home company readily admitted “high-dollar seniors” – patients who bring in a high rate of reimbursement — without first looking into whether they can meet their needs. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

Patients such as 59-year-old Laura Bernstein, who is named in the lawsuit, says Extendicare’s promotional materials claim that the company provides high-quality, skilled nursing care services and that their facilities maintain quality standards above and beyond what government regulations mandate. But state health department records show otherwise. Extendicare’s homes apparently received between 10 and 37 citations in recent years. In one instance, state investigators discovered that one of Extendicare’s nursing homes didn’t even take the necessary steps to rescue a resident who hanged himself.
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A Bakersfield nursing home is appealing a $100,000 state fine imposed for the death of a resident who investigators say choked on a tomato ketchup packet, The Bakersfield Californian reports in an October 23, 2008 article. California Department of Health investigators said the staff at Glenwood Gardens’ skilled nursing facility knew the 84-year-old man constantly tried to eat non-edible objects, but did not do anything to stop him from ingesting the ketchup packet in 2006. The patient had been diagnosed with dementia and breathing problems. A mortuary embalmer apparently discovered the ketchup packet wedged in the back of the man’s throat.

The state’s report also stated that the nursing home staff failed to come up with an effective plan to prevent the resident from eating non-edible items. Glenwood Gardens received the AA citation, which is issued when a resident death has occurred directly as a result of the nursing home’s negligence.

What did Glenwood Gardens officials have to say with regard to their appeal of the citation? That there “were no grounds we could find for the citation.”
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A Placerville, California, nursing home has been fined $21,000 for its staff’s negligence, which California Health Department investigators say led to the death of 86-year-old Donald Forseth. According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, Forseth, a World War II veteran, died about two years ago after he became severely dehydrated at the El Dorado Care Center where he had been a resident for four months.

Health department investigators determined that the nursing home’s staff failed to monitor Forseth’s fluid intake, which caused the dehydration, kidney failure and eventually, death. Officials also said there were some serious staffing deficiencies at the nursing home. Forseth’s death sparked an investigation only after Carole Herman, president of Sacramento advocacy group Foundation Aiding the Elderly, filed a complaint.

It took California Health Department officials two full years to adjudicate this case and issue this report. I agree with Carole Herman that this delay is ridiculous and unacceptable. Forseth’s widow, Patricia, who had won a court settlement against the nursing home, has since died.
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done victims of Orange County nursing home abuse and negligence a huge disservice by vetoing all state funding for the Long-Term Ombudsman Program. We blogged about the staff cuts suffered by the Orange County Council of Aging, a group whose ombudsmen have been doing an excellent job of paying unannounced visits to local nursing homes and detecting cases of abuse and negligence. According to the group’s news release, they lost 55 percent of program funding for the year and was forced to lay off almost all of their paid part-time field ombudsmen. The Governor had vetoed $3.8 million in state funding for long-term care ombudsman programs across California.

This program is now heavily dependent on dedicated volunteers who are willing to take the required 36-hour training program and then complete 10 hours of field training before they can become certified by the state of California to advocate for nursing home residents.

There are any number of examples from Orange County nursing homes and similar facilities all over Southern California, which demonstrate the need for this program. In August, Hemet Valley Health Center was fined $100,000 for the death of a resident because of inadequate care. Here in Orange County, the family of an elderly resident filed a lawsuit against Villa Valencia in Laguna Hills. The assisted living facility allegedly delayed calling 911 for 24 minutes while a resident bled to death from an injury suffered in a fall.
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Orange County’s Council on Aging is a local nonprofit advocacy group that pays surprise visits to nursing homes and investigates Orange County nursing home abuse and negligence complaints. Unfortunately, the Council has recently cut most of its staff because of California’s budget cuts. According to this October 8, 2008 news report in The Orange County Register, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed $3.8 million in funds for long-term care ombudsman programs across California. As a result, the Orange County group lost $321,266; about half its funding. This giant budget cut caused 14 of its employees to be laid off, leaving three to do all the work.

So, what exactly did the Orange County Council on Aging office do? Basically, they visited Orange County’s 1,050 nursing homes and assisted living facilities and handled all sorts of complaints from bad food and patient neglect to serious cases of physical and sexual abuse. Office staff members also act as legal witnesses for all advance directive requests signed by nursing home patients.
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Elmore Kittower, 80, died in November 2007 after he was tortured and physically abused by employees at Silverado Senior Living, a Calabasas nursing home, according to this 10/6/08 MSNBC News report. Los Angeles County Sheriff Department detectives have arrested four people, including 20-year-old Cesar Ulloa, who police believe was the leader of a group that routinely abused helpless nursing home residents.

Kittower’s family made the tough decision to place him at Silverado Senior Living after a blood clot in his brain left him unable to live at home. Sheriff’s officials opened up an investigation after they received several anonymous letters and phone calls about the circumstances of Kittower’s death. They exhumed Elmore Kittower’s body and determined that he had suffered “a repeated pattern of physical abuse.”
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The higher incidence of nursing home negligence and abuse cases in Orange County and Los Angeles County is making families nervous about selecting the right nursing home for their loved ones. An October 2, 2008 article in the Riverside Press-Enterprise, offers up some good advice on how to choose the right nursing home, especially for families who are faced with the tough decision of transferring their loved ones from one nursing home to another.

So what are some danger signs or red flags you should look for when you go scouting? Well, the horror stories are many. California health inspectors in 2005 who visited Huntington Healthcare Center in Los Angeles found residents wearing soiled clothes, animal droppings near food in the dining area and a patient with an open head wound. While these are the more obvious signs, there are also many subtler signs and symptoms that you should look for.
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An Orange County nursing home is facing a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit from the family of 83-year-old Luveda Fern Kessler, who died of complications from a fall at the Villa Valencia Health Care Center. According to an article in The Orange County Register, Kessler fell and cut her leg on Aug. 23, 2007. She reportedly bled for more than 40 minutes without a nurse or healthcare professional by her side and was pronounced dead by paramedics.

A 911 recording of the incident clearly showed that the only person who was present near Kessler at Villa Valencia was “a staffer” who couldn’t even tell the 911 operator where Kessler was bleeding. The nursing home essentially neglected Kessler by not providing qualified staff at her service and allowing her to bleed to death.

The nursing home has already faced two negligence lawsuits recently, which allege that the facility is woefully understaffed. In Kessler’s case, the nursing home staff was fully aware that she used a walker and was prone to falls. Despite this knowledge, nursing home staff apparently didn’t even help Kessler get out of bed or to go to the bathroom. Her daughter said she put her mother in a nursing home because she lives in a tri-level condo, which would have been impossible for her mother to live in.
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