Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

When the Hopley family moved 51-year-old Bruce Hopley into Golden Moments Senior Care Center in Jacksonville, Ill., in late August of 2006, they alerted staff that he was “severely diabetic,” and that he had required emergency hospitalization on numerous occasions for erratic blood sugar levels and seizures. Nineteen days later, just an hour after staff documented high blood sugar levels in his blood, Mr. Hopley was found dead, according to a story by the Jacksonville (Illinois) Journal-Courier.

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Nursing home residents and their families who sign mandatory arbitration clauses when being admitted into long-term care facilities, are one step closer to regaining their rights to hold those facilities accountable in court for abuse and neglect, according to the Senior Journal. The Journal reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee this week approved the bi-partisan bill - the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act of 2008. The bill moves to the Senate for approval.

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Just another reminder to do your homework when checking out nursing homes: Sun-Mar, a company that runs 18 skilled nursing facilities in Southern California, had boasted in its brochures about the outstanding care it provides. Unfortunately, that was found not to be the case. According to the Los Angeles Times, Sun-Mar agreed to pay $2 million to former residents in a settlement stemming from a class-action lawsuit that alleged substandard care of its elderly patients.

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A decision from Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller’s office on May 27 reverses an earlier decision to keep secret the names of people fired from care facilities for abusing elderly and disabled clients. According to The Des Moines Register, the new decision comes nine months after the state first began to limit access to the information.

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