› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Phil Kadner, a reporter for the Southtown Star in Illinios, recently told of a heartbreaking visit to his office by an elderly gentleman whose wife recently died while under care in a nursing home. Crying, the man told Kadner he was afraid to complain about what he saw as neglectful treatment, fearing the nursing home staff would retaliate by treating her worse.
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.
A review of the nation’s nursing home inspection reports by the Congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) lists Alabama among nine states with the worst records of nursing home inspection accuracy, saying inspectors missed serious problems in more than 25 percent of all inspections from 2002-2007. The report said most states still fared dismally, missing at least one serious deficiency in 15 percent of all inspections.
