The explosion that had ravaged Audree Hopkins’ face, burning off both earlobes and the end of her nose, was a mystery.
Seattle police Detective Suzanne Moore had her suspicions. But by the time Moore was called to the West Seattle elder-care home to investigate, five days had passed since the blast and nearly every shred of evidence was gone.
The detective questioned workers who had cared for Hopkins, a stroke- and emphysema-hobbled 68-year-old who had lived in the TLC Adult Family Home for six months at the time of the March 2007 accident. The caregivers’ stories, all seemingly synchronized, shot down Moore’s theory.
No, they said, none of them had handed the partially blind Hopkins a lit cigarette, though she was a smoker and unable to light one herself.
No, they said, Hopkins was not connected to an oxygen pump at the time, though she used one at night for breathing.
Moore left the adult family home on Southwest Thistle Street determined to get answers. She caught a break when she learned from Fire Department reports that responders saw an oxygen pump on the deck. And then she discovered that Hopkins’ husband, Larry, had retrieved his wife’s melted wheelchair, damaged oxygen pump and burned clothing for safekeeping.
Read more…
Some fell to the floor and bled to death internally. Others choked on food and suffocated. Still others languished for weeks as bedsores burrowed to the bone, ultimately killing them.
In neighborhoods throughout Seattle and across the state, hundreds have died prematurely, many in avoidable misery, while living at state-licensed adult family homes.
A Seattle Times investigation has uncovered at least 236 deaths that indicate neglect or abuse in these homes but were not reported to the state or investigated.
Dozens of suspicious deaths occurred in adult homes with long histories of violations, including some whose owners employed caregivers with little training or forged credentials.
In the first accounting of such deaths, The Times identified these cases by analyzing death certificates of 4,703 Washington residents who died at adult homes from 2003 through 2008.
Adult homes are a less-regulated, less-expensive elder-care option than nursing homes, and are touted as providing personalized care in cozy, neighborhood settings.
Read more…
A case against a Kentucky nursing home may reveal holes in laws meant to protect nursing home residents since the state only requires criminal background checks for employees caring directly for nursing home residents but not background checks for nursing home support staff like maintenance workers.
According to a story by the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader posted on Kentucky.com, a lawsuit filed against a nursing home in the state indicates that the nursing home hired a maintenance worker without a criminal background check after he had been arrested for sexual solicitation of a minor and retained his services even after he was placed on Kentucky’s sex offender registry.
The Herald-Leader reported that a former nurse’s aide at the nursing home said in a lawsuit filed that the maintenance worker in question – who underwent a credit check but not a criminal background check – sexually harassed her and stalked her before he was suspended by the nursing home. The maintenance worker’s status as a registered sex offender also put nursing home residents at risk, according to the lawsuit.
While there are no state law specifically calls for criminal background checks for all nursing home employees, there are state and federal regulations that nursing home facilities shall not employ “individuals who have been convicted of abusing, neglecting, or mistreating individuals,” according to the Herald-Leader.
In addition, the Herald-Leader reports that the lawsuit alleges that nursing home officials could easily have found out about the maintenance worker’s past before they hired him, since the Kentucky State Police had announced that the man had been arrested for “unlawful use of electronic means to induce a minor” in January 2008 before the facility hired him in July 2008.
The founder of an advocacy group called Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform is quoted in the story as saying he thinks all nursing home employees should have criminal background checks.
Read more…
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill today which seeks to limit senior financial exploitation across the state. Abusing the finances of elderly residents is often cited as the most common form of senior abuse. Many seniors are especially vulnerable to financial exploitation, because they lack the ability to adequately defend themselves.
The abuse can take many forms and occur at the hands of various individuals. Earlier this month we posted on the financial abuse of an elderly couple by a fraudulent individual who claimed to provide necessary roofing work on their home. Instead of provided any home repair, however, the individual took the several thousand dollar payments from the couple without doing any work.
Also, elderly financial exploitation often occurs at the hands of nursing home staff members. Providing care to these vulnerable residents, nursing home staff members maintain a dominant and potentially abusive role in the lives of nursing home residents. Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti have decades of experience in dealing with all forms of elder abuse, including financial exploitation. Through the years our attorneys have seen many cases of nursing home staff members gaining access to their residents’ funds and stealing thousands of dollars from the weak and vulnerable individuals in their care.
The bill signed by the governor today to combat these abuses seeks to train bank employees to recognize the warning signs associated with elder financial exploitation. Those warning signals include sudden changes to an account or the banking practices of seniors, unauthorized ATM withdrawals, sudden changes to a will, and other similar activities.
Read more…
One of the largest elder abuse verdicts ever handed down was upheld this week according to the Sacramento Bee. A Superior Court judge recently kept intact the $29 million verdict against Horizon West HealthCare resulting from the 2005 death of one of its residents.
Frances Tanner had retired from a life of public service with both the FBI and IRS before arriving at Horizon in 2005. While at the facility, Ms. Tanner suffered a fall that broke her hip. The broken hip went undiagnosed for days. Eventually, after being bedridden and receiving highly inadequate care, she died of an infected bed sore. Pressure sores are almost always preventable and the result of negligent nursing home care.
At trial evidence revealed that Horizon chronically understaffed its facility, violating state law which mandated a minimum number of care hours. Horizon clearly did not prioritize the care of its residents, instead sacrificing their health to operate in any way that was cheap and easy. As the opinion upholding the $29 million verdict commented, Horizon’s operation was “based, time and again, predominantly on concern for the bottom line.”
The jury awarded included $800,000 for pain and suffering and nearly $28 million in punitive damages. The punitive damage award is intended to punish the horribly inadequate, harmful, abusive conduct of Horizon. The purpose is to discourage the company (which runs 33 other nursing homes) from acting is such a harmful manner in the future.
Horizon had claimed that the award was too high. The Superior Court judge shot that idea down, noting that, “this was an overwhelming case. It does not deserve to be retried. That would be a travesty.”
Our nursing home abuse attorneys at Levin & Perconti have fought many battles on behalf of many innocent victims like Ms. Tanner who have been abused by big nursing homes chains. All residents and their family and friends need to be extra vigilant to ensure that these corporations provide appropriate care to the patients depending on them.
View Source…
Callahan, CA: A few days ago Michael Thamer and three other lawyers won a $671 million elder abuse verdict against a group of nursing homes that operate under the banner of Skilled Healthcare Group. It a large award that sent the company’s stock price sharply lower, and Thamer hopes corporate for-profit nursing homes get the message.
“I don’t we busted them, but I think we got their attention,” he says.
Thamer has been doing elder abuse cases and litigating against nursing homes for 12 years. Although he frequently made significant recoveries on behalf of nursing home residents who received poor care or suffered personal injury, he noticed something disturbing.
“You get some compensation for your client, but then the nursing home continues on with the same conduct. For other families and residents nothing much changes.”
This most recent suit originated when a number of residents and families approached Thamer with complaints about a group of nursing homes that were corporately tied together as the Skilled Healthcare Group. Patients, families and even ex-employees reported a pattern of understaffing that caused “insults and indignities” to occur on a regular basis.
“It takes 45 minutes to shower a resident, and we had people that got one or two showers a month—and these are people that are incontinent. I could go on and on,” says Thamer. “Yes, I would say I am motivated by outrage. I absolutely am.”
Due to staffing shortages, others went without meals or were isolated from the group because there was no time to change their clothes when they were soiled. California law says patients and residents of nursing homes have a legal right to reside in place with adequate staff. Every violation carries a fine of $500.
The cases couldn’t be pursed as a class action—the injuries are too varied. Pursed as individual cases, the suits would too expensive and inconsequential. And the nursing home standards rarely changed.
Read more…
Every state has an agency in charge of investigating nursing home abuse and neglect claims. In Texas it is the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (TDADS), which was created to administer long-term services and support for people who are aging and who have cognitive and physical disabilities.
However, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), when nursing home residents were possibly harmed by their caregivers last year, state investigators failed to quickly respond in two out of three cases within the required 10 working day deadline.
In addition, police officer’s are not adequately trained to investigate elder abuse allegations. There needs to be a set protocol or a special unit that deals with elder abuse allegations. The commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services told a Senate committee that, “Officers need to have a clear picture of what agency officials do in responding to complaints of abuse and neglect, and training in how to work together in those investigations.”
It is important that someone who understands the disease processes of Dementia and Alzheimer do the investigations. Many times law officers do not comprehend the disease well enough to do a thorough evaluation of the situation. For instance, if a person who suffers from Dementia or Alzheimer’s makes an allegation, they may be written off as being confused causing officials to doubt the validity of the claim. Sadly, there is the perception that it is not as serious, and that people who have Dementia and Alzheimer’s can’t be damaged because they cannot remember the attack.
Read more…
Every state has an agency in charge of investigating nursing home abuse and neglect claims. In Texas it is the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (TDADS), which was created to administer long-term services and support for people who are aging and who have cognitive and physical disabilities.
However, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), when nursing home residents were possibly harmed by their caregivers last year, state investigators failed to quickly respond in two out of three cases within the required 10 working day deadline.
In addition, police officer’s are not adequately trained to investigate elder abuse allegations. There needs to be a set protocol or a special unit that deals with elder abuse allegations. The commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services told a Senate committee that, “Officers need to have a clear picture of what agency officials do in responding to complaints of abuse and neglect, and training in how to work together in those investigations.”
It is important that someone who understands the disease processes of Dementia and Alzheimer do the investigations. Many times law officers do not comprehend the disease well enough to do a thorough evaluation of the situation. For instance, if a person who suffers from Dementia or Alzheimer’s makes an allegation, they may be written off as being confused causing officials to doubt the validity of the claim. Sadly, there is the perception that it is not as serious, and that people who have Dementia and Alzheimer’s can’t be damaged because they cannot remember the attack.
Read more…
If you saw someone punch a disabled person with a closed fist on a street corner, most people would call the police. But when it happens behind the closed door of a nursing home, the response tends to be less clear-cut.
At least that’s what staff attorneys from Disability Rights California found in a report issued this week that explores 12 cases of abuse against elderly or disabled people in California nursing homes. The nonprofit advocacy group’s report is called “Victimized Twice: Abuse of of nursing home residents, No criminal accountability for perpatrators.”
Although nursing home employees are bound by “mandated reporter” laws that require them to immediately report abuse to authorities, that does not always happen.
Abuse tends to be most efficiently reported to the Department of Public Health, which licenses nursing homes, the report shows. It also tends to get to elder care ombudsmen, who are valid recipients of reports that caretakers are obligated to share.
But care workers are far less frequently calling criminal investigators, the report finds. And that’s key, the report suggests, since an ombudsman who does not get consent from a victim to go forward with an investigation is left with no legal option but to drop the matter.
Read more…
The Veterans Land Board promotes its seven state-owned veterans homes with a glossy brochure titled “Where Honor Lives.”
But there was nothing honorable about what allegedly happened to World War II Navy veteran John Harris in the final months of his life in 2007 at the Lamun-Lusk-Sanchez State Veterans Home in Big Spring.
A certified nurse aide said she saw a co-worker grab the 97-year-old from his wheelchair and slam him into his bed. Harris, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, was taken to the hospital that night when he complained of hip pain, according to a state inspection report.
That same year, another employee at the home was accused of punching and trying to choke Albert Teague, 84, a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima.
Regulators have repeatedly found problems and cited violations at that West Texas facility, which the General Land Office, parent agency of the veterans board, says were promptly fixed. But the criminal investigation into the two former Big Spring workers languished for more than two years because of confusion over who should investigate, cumbersome bureaucracy and conflicts among local police, state officials and home administrators,
Felony charges were filed against the ex-employees last month. Two weeks before that, in an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Howard County District Attorney Hardy Wilkerson described the lengthy review as a product of “investigations at cross purposes” – a state agency that inspects nursing homes conducting an inquiry that should have been coordinated with police.
Read more…
