› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
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.
“Every day, American families face difficult decisions about whether to move a loved one into a nursing home. There are nearly 17,000 nursing homes in the United States that currently care for 1.6 million residents — a figure expected to quadruple to 6.6 million residents by 2050. The quality of care provided by these nursing homes has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent years.” – U.S. Congress Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Chairman Henry A. Waxman, 110th Congress
According to the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), no one knows precisely how many older Americans are being abused, neglected, or exploited. This is because there are no official national statistics.
On March 3, the Des Moines Register reported that in 2007 the state fined 23 Iowa nursing homes $10,000 or more for providing substandard care. Some of those homes were also hit with federal fines and sanctions against their state licenses.
As for people with family in nursing homes, Kathleen Sadlier says to be careful. “If you have someone there, really keep an eye on everything to see what is going on. Don’t just think they are being taken care of, because they might not be. I feel sorry for those in nursing homes who don’t have family members to watch over them. More people need to speak out about this.”
A daughter was horrified when she found that her 82-year-old father had been badly neglected while in a Florida nursing home. The WWII veteran entered the nursing home at the recommendation of hospice workers, due to serious lung problems and the inability to use his legs. They recommended the more constant care provided in a nursing home environment. Unfortunately, the man’s condition deteriorated in the facility due to apparent neglect.
The family of an 84-year-old man who died while in the care of a Louisiana nursing home has been awarded $1 million in damages stemming from a nursing home neglect and medical malpractice lawsuit. Leon Nelms of Tallulah, La., died in November 2004 because of complications arising from neglect at Olive Branch Senior Care Center, the jury found. The 12-person jury rendered its verdict on Nov. 2.
It is a family’s worst fear realized. They entrust the care of a loved one to a nursing home facility, only to find evidence of neglect and abuse. It’s the situation the Graham family of Louisville, Ky., experienced in 2007, when Rev. Dennis Graham, just shy of his 55th birthday, died while a resident of Harborside Healthcare in Jefferson County.
