News for June, 2009

Families of nursing home abuse victims speak out using social media

It was almost unbelievable, the reports of patients being physically and sexually abused by nursing home aides at of Albert Lea in Minnesota. The aides said they didn’t mean any harm when they held down patients, shoved their fingers and hands in their mouths and noses to quiet their cries and screams, rubbed and hit their breasts and genitals, and sexually “humped” them. They simply called it, “work fun, or to get a good laugh.”

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New guidelines aim to improve nursing home care

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued new guidance for nursing home surveyors, offering more clarification for several components of the survey that aim to improve residents’ quality of life and environment. Under these new guidelines, surveys will be focused on key areas such as ensuring residents live with dignity, offering choices in care and services, accommodating the environment to each residents’ needs and preferences, and creating a more homelike environment with access to visitors.

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June 15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

More than a million senior citizens suffer from abuse or neglect in a single year, many of whom live in nursing homes, according to the National Center on Elder Abuse. For every case reported to authorities, more than five go unreported. These startling statistics have rallied the eldercare advocacy group International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA) to declare a day to raise awareness of the cultural, social, economic and demographic process affecting elder abuse and neglect through community events aimed at promoting understanding of abuse and neglect of older persons.

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Maggots found crawling out of nursing home resident’s leg cast

Florida state regulators have recently fined Azalea Court nursing home in West Palm Beach, Florida $16,000 after a patient was found on the floor with maggots crawling out of his leg cast, according to On Call with Phil Galewitz, from the Palm Beach Post.

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Beasley Allen files complaint against Arkansas nursing home

Beasley Allen attorney J.P. Sawyer is representing the family of an Arkansas man who suffered at the hands of staff ill-equipped to care for him at the White Hall Nursing and Center. The complaint alleges the nursing home facility put profits over people, misrepresenting its ability to properly care for residents in order to hold onto government funding.

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