› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Like many people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, Florence Warren was prone to wandering off. She had escaped from numerous care centers in the past, which is why her family chose to move her into Good Samaritan Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Avon, Ohio, earlier this month. The home had a secure, locked unit especially for those suffering from cognitive disorders.
Thousands of young and middle-aged adults with serious mental illnesses live in U.S. nursing homes, putting frail nursing home residents at risk for serious injury or death, according to a report gathered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services prepared exclusively for the Associated Press.
The choking death of a Fresno, California nursing home resident has resulted in the severest penalty under California state law and an $80,000 fine against the home for inadequate care, according to the Fresno Bee.
Two senators have reintroduced legislation aimed at improving the quality of care in nursing homes. The Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act, reintroduced by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI), would give consumers more information about the quality of care at nursing homes, provide the government with better tools to enforce high quality standards, and encourage nursing homes to improve on the care they provide, according to Trading Markets.
An Iowa nursing home has been ordered to pay $7,000 in federal fines for not investigating complaints from staff and residents about sexual abuse from a male nursing aide. Eight separate incidents of abuse against different residents had been made to managers and supervisors at New Homestead Care Center involving staffer Juan Bautista-Meraz, according to the Des Moines Register.
Family members of one of three female nursing home residents are accusing the nursing home where they lived with trying to cover up incidents of sexual abuse, according to Keloand Television. The victims all were residents of Castle Manor Nursing Home in Hot Springs, South Dakota.
No one disputes that 74-year-old Julia McCauley, a resident at Life Care Center of Acton in Massachusetts rolled her wheelchair outside the front door of the home where she had lived five years. She had done it on more than one occasion. But in August of 2004, her trip through the exit resulted in her tumbling down a flight of stairs. She died shortly after the fall.
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would protect nursing home residents and their families from losing their right to hold long-term care facilities accountable for negligent and abusive care.
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The secret of Robert Young’s death was almost buried forever with the nursing home resident who suffered from cerebral palsy. But his family kept asking questions. A year later, Young’s body was exhumed from his pauper’s grave and an autopsy was performed, revealing that the man’s death was the result of blunt force trauma to the head, according to the Chattanooga (Tennessee) Times Free Press.
State Sen. Dan Kotowski said he had good intentions when he sponsored a bill in the Illinois General Assembly that would refund fines paid by nursing homes that promised to use the money to improve care at their facilities. But opponents of the bill say it is faulty and would only “eliminate the financial disincentive for bad behavior,” according to the State Journal-Register.
