Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse/Neglect

Mundelein resident, Alla Mavlyanova, 43-years-old and her twin brother, Alex Yadgarov, of Wauconda recently filed a lawsuit against Hampton Plaza Health Care Centre at 9777 Greenwood Ave., according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

The siblings allege in their wrongful-death lawsuit that the Niles, Illinois nursing home’s employees were not adequately trained to handle a fire in May that killed their father, 67-year-old Igor Shteyn. Niles Police Sgt. Tom Davis said the fire reportedly began in a closet in Shteyn’s room on the third floor of the nursing home and may have been caused by smoldering smoking materials. Shteyn had shared the room with Naum Berdichevsky, 76, who also died in the fire.

After nursing home fires killed 31 residents Congress passed “The Nursing Home Fire Safety Act” (NHFSA) in 2004 requiring automatic fire sprinkler systems in all nursing facilities participating in the Medicare or Medicaid Programs. I’m certain that Niles and the Cook County Fire Code require working sprinklers at every floor in a nursing home.
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The implementation of laws to protect seniors and dependent adults from abuse by court-appointed conservators are under threat of being delayed yet another year. Conservators control the care and finances of adults, usually the elderly, whom probate courts deem to be incapable of caring for themselves or managing their own finances.

In response to the discovery of theft, elder abuse and negligence by some court appointed professional conservators in the handling of the affairs of seniors and dependant adults, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a sweeping reform package in 2006 designed to improve supervision of the conservators by the courts that appoint them.

The California Senate’s Budget and Fiscal Review Committee has recommended holding back on funding the conservatorship reform program for another year, dealing another blow to the State’s aged and disabled. An article in The L.A.Times reports this measure is a part of the State’s courts $246 million budget cuts and is now being considered for the final budget draft.
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An Orange County jury has awarded $1 million in punitive damages to the family of Mary Kathleen Adams, a 104-year-old woman who died when she briefly stayed at the Villa Valencia Care Center nursing home, the Orange County Register reported. This verdict comes a week after the same jurors delivered a $1 million verdict against Sunrise Senior Living, the company that owns Villa Valencia Care Center, for its roll in the death of Adams in March 2005.

According to the report, Adams admitted herself into the nursing home after she broke her leg. The lawsuit alleges that she developed pressure ulcers, which worsened because of nursing home staff neglect. The problem worsened when the nursing home did not perform adequate treatment such as daily skin checks. Adams’ children, Janice Borkovetz and Wendell Adams, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in December 2005. The lawsuit alleged Sunrise knowingly understaffed their facilities putting profits over people.
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A Palm Desert nursing home is facing a $100,000 state fine and the severest AA citation after a patient reportedly died from an infection caused by a perforated colon. According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, California Department of Public Health investigators issued the citation against The Springs at the Calotta, a 59-bed facility, for failing to identify and monitor the medical needs of an 87-year-old woman who suffered from a severe case of constipation for 24 days.

The woman died in June 2006, but it took investigators about a year and a half to obtain all the documentation and conduct internal investigations, the news report said. The victim was admitted into the nursing home on June 5 to recover from a broken pelvis. Apparently, nursing home administrators knew that she was constipated when she came in, but did nothing to relieve her problems. She eventually died June 29, less than a month after she was brought to the nursing home.
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A Marysville, CA nursing home is facing a $100,000 fine from the State Department of Health and Human Services after an 84-year-old resident was found dead in May 2007, her head stuck between her bed and a bed rail. According to an article in the Appeal-Democrat newspaper, Dorothy Rothacher reportedly died after the nursing home failed to lower bed rails or use an alarm that would have alerted nurses that the patient was getting up from her bed.

The nursing home owners, who also own Yuba City Care Center in the same city, has remained quiet about this incident. This apparently wasn’t the first time the state received complaints about this particular nursing home. Last year 17 complaints were received and state inspectors found 36 deficiencies there, the article reported. The most recent citation, an AA citation, is usually given for the most serious violations.

Rothacher had been a two-year resident at the nursing home and was suffering from osteoarthritis, psychosis as well as Alzheimer’s disease. The article also points out that nurses had given conflicting statements during the investigation about whether Rothacher got out of bed or whether a bed alarm was used. According to the coroner’s report, the cause of death was “asphyxiation due to a compressed and fractured larynx.” The nursing home also did not keep up with the patient’s care plan, which called for a bed alarm and rails positioned on the top half of the bed, allowing her to get out of the lower half.
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Officials in Prosperity, S.C. are investigating a case of nursing home abuse and neglect, which they say is the worst they have ever seen. The investigation into the conditions in Southside Residential Care began after 59-year-old William Sealy, a resident at the nursing home, died after he was rushed to the hospital.

Police say it is the worst case of neglect they have ever seen and that it was very obvious that Sealy had been neglected. According to a news report on WLTX-TV’s Web site, Sealy was reportedly suffering from malnourishment, dehydration, sores, bed bugs and black and swollen toes. The police chief who was interviewed for the story said he watched nurses pull the socks off Sealy’s feet in the emergency room and saw that it pulled off portions of his skin.

The nursing home administrators have denied wrongdoing and say that Sealy was a recent transfer from another nursing home. They also say Sealy was a “difficult patient and did not want anyone to do anything for him.” Prosperity authorities say that the nursing home in question has had a few problems over the years, but nothing major like this one.
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The family of a 91-year-old nursing home patient, who died after he choked on a piece of fruit, has filed a lawsuit against a Modesto nursing home alleging abuse and negligence through a Modesto lawyer who has declined to comment about the case, according to an article in the Modesto Bee newspaper. The report stated that State health authorities imposed a $100,000 fine against English Oaks Convalescent and Rehabilitation Hospital in connection with the death of Ernest Costa Sr. – a death, which could have been entirely prevented, had the nursing home staff done their job.

The citation reportedly accused the nursing home of not only failing to find out or recognize what was happening to the patient, but failing to provide emergency care and procedures such as the Heimlich maneuver to try and save Costa. Seriously, what kind of training did these nurses and nursing assistants receive? Apparently, not much. Costa needed help with eating and other everyday activities.

What’s more, this is not the home’s first citation. In 2000, they were slapped with a $60,000 fine for the death of a 74-year-old patient. In her case, state officials said the facility did not properly monitor the woman’s feeding tube, causing a lethal infection.
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An Escondido nursing home, which has been repeatedly cited for serious violations and abuse in the past, was slapped with the highest penalty of a $100,000 fine after a resident receiving oxygen caught on fire when he was smoking unsupervised. According to a news article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, this was the fourth accusation in three years made by state officials against Palomar Heights Care Center.

Nursing home officials apparently have nothing more to say about the incident other than it was an accident. But state records cited by the newspaper clearly show there is a lot more to this story. The man, who died of severe burns Jan. 11, was left alone with an oxygen tank smoking a cigarette and he wasn’t even wearing the flame-retardant apron as required by law. And the nurse who was supposed to be watching him was somewhere else filling out charts.

Could this be a case of understaffing in this nursing home? That is certainly a possibility. Nursing homes cutting staff to boost profits is considered to be one of the leading causes of nursing home abuse and negligence, according to the advocacy group, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. In fact, the nurse in this facility wasn’t even aware that her patient was on fire until she heard someone else call out a “code red.” The man reportedly burned for six minutes.
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The family of an Ohio nursing home resident has filed a lawsuit against a male nurse accused of raping a partially paralyzed patient and sexually abusing at least 13 others. According to an article in the Port Clinton News Herald, the lawsuit alleges that nightshift nurse John Riems, 49, physically and mentally abused their father. The suit, which also lists the nursing home, Concord Care and Rehabilitation Center, as a defendant, seeks more than $175,000 in damages.

Riems, who is facing criminal charges, has admitted, following his arrest, that he abused close to 100 patients since the 1980’s. He has pleaded not guilty to rape and gross sexual imposition charges. In fact, the family of the abused man did not find out about the abuse until Riems was charged with raping another patient recently. So far officials say they have found 14 cases of abuse and are investigating 10 others.
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A man, who filed a lawsuit against a San Luis Obispo nursing home, is alleging that owners understaffed their facility to save money thereby causing the death of his mother who took a fall and died of pneumonia when she was a resident there. According to a news report in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, Jay Cameron reportedly filed the suit against Compass Health, a company that owns six local facilities. The lawsuit alleges that the home committed elder abuse, fraud, wrongful death, negligence and violated patient’s rights, the Tribune reports.

But an attorney for the nursing home denies any abuse or negligence. He says the woman was 97 years old after all and maybe she broke her hip just because she was weak and old. This is exactly how he was quoted in the newspaper: “When you’re 97 years old there is no way to guarantee that people don’t fall, if that’s what did happen.” Isn’t that why families entrust their loved ones to people they believe are professionals? Isn’t that exactly the reason why this facility should be held accountable more than anyone else?
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