Lawsuit Filed

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The Madison-St. Clair Record reported the lawsuit filed against Integrity Healthcare of Alton; General Medicine, PC or in the alternative General Medicine of Illinois Physicians, PC; Senior  Healthcare Management, LLC; and Steve Blisco, alleging the defendants violated the Nursing Home Refort Act of 1987.

Jerome Bates, as administrator of the estate of Judith Bates, filed a complaint alleging neglect and failure to properly care for the decedent. On June 24, 2015, Judith Bates was a resident at the defendant’s nursing home and developed a urinary tract infection.  Judith Bates was also dehydrated, suffered from protein calorie malnutrition, had lost weight, suffered from urinary incontinence, could no longer eat and complained of abdominal pain. However, the plaintiff alleges no doctor was notified of her condition. The next day, Judith Bates died.

The plaintiff alleges the defendants failed to formulate and update a plan of care regarding hydration, weight loss, nutrition and diet, urinary incontinence and urinary tract infections and failed to provide appropriate hygiene and preventative measures to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections.

Suspicious Death Outside Nursing Home

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Illinois Public Media News reported that Champaign County Administrator Rick Snider says his nursing home is cooperating with an investigation into the death of a resident of the home. According to the News-Gazette, the county coroner and Illinois State Police are investigating the death of a 78-year-old woman who was discovered in the courtyard and may have been outside in high temperatures for as many as three hours.

The investigation comes as the county board looks to hire a management firm to run the nursing home and continues to discuss options for selling it. A majority of voters in April’s election backed a referendum in support of selling or closing the nursing home.

Indictments for Abuse

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

NJ.com reported that three certified nurse aides were indicted over claims they abused patients at residential care facilities across the state, authorities said. The caregivers were charged in separate indictments according to the state Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor.

Danny Brown worked at Lopatcong Care Center nursing home. Brown was witnessed by coworkers punching a 53-year-man in a wheelchair and threatening to break his neck. Brown was indicted on third-degree charges of making terroristic threats and endangering another person.

Cairy Chrisphonte is accused of hitting an an 87-year-old dementia patient in the head and arm in front of coworkers at the Daughters of Miriam nursing home. She faces charges of fourth-degree assault upon an institutionalized elderly person.

Debra L. Matela was caught on a surveillance camera kicking a wheelchair out from under a 73-year-old woman at the Northbrook Behavioral Health Hospital. She was charged with third-degree aggravated assault.

“We are putting the health care community on notice that we are prepared to use every law available to protect New Jersey’s elderly and disabled patients from abuse,” said acting state Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Christopher Iu in a statement.

Last year, state Attorney General Christopher Porrino announced a new program loaning out hidden cameras to New Jersey residents who fear their elderly and infirm relatives are being abused by home care workers. State authorities later expanded the program, “Safe Care Cam,” to include patients at residential facilities as well.

 

Caregiver Arrested

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported the arrest of James Royce Weber charged with raping a resident who has dementia.  Farmington police were called to Presbyterian Manor last month after concerns were raised by a visitor. Police say that after Weber left the room of a 74-year-old resident, a supervisor went into the room and found her partially unclothed.

 The woman told authorities she had intercourse with Weber. Police say Weber admitted to having sex with the resident on two occasions about three weeks apart.

Horrific Conditions Found

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The Gaston Gazette reported that Heritage Oaks in Gastonia is not allowed to admit new residents to the adult home after a 135 page report pointing out conditions that were “detrimental to the health and safety” came to light.

The state Department of Health and Human Services went to the adult assisted-living center to do a compliance check in March after receiving six complaints. Their findings were published in the 135-page report, and the department sent a letter on May 25 barring the home from accepting any new residents.

 Violations in the report include black substances found at baseboards in the building, a lack of bath towels causing residents to not shower as frequently as they should be, faculty not documenting blood sugar levels correctly and some residents not receiving the medications they were supposed to.

Cobey Culton, a press assistant with the Department of Health and Human Services, said the department received six complaints between December of last year and this past March, when former Heritage Oaks maintenance worker Richard Bosquez III had his mother call and complain.

Disgusting

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

A rat-infested nursing home littered with dead flies has been shut down after caregivers were accused of disconnecting a call bell because they thought it was “irritating”. Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission found residents wearing the same clothes for days, dead flies in a potato peeler and people “not treated with dignity” at Bentley Care Home in Liverpool.

The report added: “The premises were not safe, with faulty electrics regularly giving staff static shocks, and people permitted to smoke in their bedrooms – putting everyone at a potentially devastating fire risk.”

Debbie Westhead, CQC deputy chief inspector for adult social care, said: “The care we found provided at Bentley Care Home was appalling. It’s disgraceful the call systems were broken, or taken away from people who required help because they were described as a nuisance.

Stealing from Holocaust Survivors

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

McKnight’s reported the arrest of Stephanie Sanders Hays, a social services director for Leslie Lakes Retirement Center, for stealing nearly $400,000 from residents between 2012 and 2016. The amount stolen by Hays also included Social Security and pension payments, as well as German Holocaust reparations.

Between September 2012 and February 2016 Hays allegedly “executed several schemes” and abused her power of attorney for at least one resident to steal money from that resident’s bank account, IRAs, annuity plan and money from the sale of a house. She also reportedly purchased items requested by residents with forged checks from the facility.

Hays was arrested Friday and charged with 15 counts of thefts of the assets of a person who is aged or person with a disability; 19 counts of money laundered; 17 counts of forgery; and 17 counts of exploitation of persons with infirmities. Her bail was set at $300,000.

She was previously arrested in December 2013 for unauthorized use of a deceased resident’s cell phone to send text messages.

Cameras Needed to Document Neglect

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The Minnesota Department of Health sided with a nursing home resident’s family in a case involving surveillance cameras in resident rooms.  Lisa Papp-Richards filed a complaint with the department earlier this year after she installed a camera in her mother’s nursing home room because of unknown injuries and signs of neglect. The facility objected to the camera, and at some points covering it up with a towel or unplugging it.

The health department’s maltreatment finding in favor of the family is significant in the state, the Star Tribune reported, because it is the first ruling to affirm residents’ or families’ rights to install cameras in long-term care rooms without fear of backlash from the facility.

“This [case] is hopeful because it sends a nice, powerful message to the public that it’s OK to put a camera in a room,” Cheryl Hennen, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, told the newspaper.

With state health inspectors overwhelmed by maltreatment complaints, the tiny cameras have become an important tool for families who suspect abuse or neglect but feel nursing home authorities dismiss their concerns.

A spokeswoman for the facility in question told the Tribune they took “immediate action” to fix the complaint, but did not elaborate on whether cameras would now be permitted in residents’ rooms.

Investigation Finds Neglect

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The Star-Tribune reported that Annandale Care Center “had no system, policies or procedures in place” to ensure that certain medications and some other services were being provided as prescribed.  An unnamed  nursing home resident developed internal bleeding and died after being denied crucial blood-thinning medication for 15 days, according to a state investigation that blamed the death on the facility’s procedural shortcomings.

The Health Department said a nurse discovered that the resident’s doses of Coumadin, a blood-thinning medication, had been stopped without a doctor’s order. A required dosage test had not been performed, and that missing information triggered an automatic entry in the resident’s electronic medication record for the drug’s administration to be halted.

In response to the finding of neglect, the home revised its policies concerning the administration of blood-thinning medication, reviewed the records of residents who receive that type of medication and briefed staff on proper procedures, the report said.

Despite treatment at one hospital and then another, the resident died about two weeks after the medication error was discovered, the report said.

Failure to Provide Smoking Apron

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Donna Chapman died Monday after suffering fatal third-degree burns as she smoked unsupervised in her wheelchair at NHC HealthCare. Chapman had been wheeled onto the nursing home’s patio and left there alone to smoke a cigarette before dinner.

She was partly paralyzed from a stroke and had the use of only her right arm. Somehow Chapman’s clothing caught on fire, and was found ablaze by an attendant. The attendant returned to find Chapman on fire, then ran to get help instead of using the fire blanket that was stored on the patio.

Her family was shocked when they saw her in the trauma center. Blackened parts of her skin were coming off. Her badly burned clothes were reduced to scraps. Her bra disintegrated. Her white hair was charred black. She lingered in the hospital on Mother’s Day, then died at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

“She caught fire and burned,” her daughter-in-law, Mary Portscheller says. “The doctor said several times that she had very deep burns on her breast, her back and the back of her head.”

At the burn unit at Mercy Hospital St. Louis, a doctor explained to Chapman’s family that the burns were so bad she would need eight skin grafts, painful procedures that might be too much for her.

“He said it would be tough on her to do all these painful skin grafts,” Portscheller said. “So we knew we were going to lose her.”

Relatives of a nursing home patient who suffered fatal burns while smoking a cigarette are questioning how long she was left unattended and whether proper procedures were followed before and after she caught fire.

• How did she get burned so badly, over 20 percent of her body, if left alone for only 10 minutes?

• Why wasn’t Chapman wearing a special fire-resistant smoking apron, which was assigned to her months ago?

Three months ago, the nursing home assigned her a smoking apron, a silicone-coated fiberglass fabric that covers someone from their shoulders to below their knees. It protects wheelchair users from accidental cigarette burns.

• Was the attendant who saw her on fire trained to use a specially made fire blanket to smother the flames?

NHC HealthCare’s administrator, Seth Peimann, told the Post-Dispatch that Chapman’s death was “a bad accident. This is a very difficult time here at the center,” Peimann said. “A lot of people were really attached to her. She was part of our family. We miss her.”