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

Eldercare advocate Wes Bledsoe stood among nearly 100 residents from Hot Springs, South Dakota last week, and rallied them to take action and change federal and state guidelines that impede speedy reporting of incidents that harm vulnerable elderly in the state’s nursing homes.

The meeting was his second since early last month, when he held a town hall meeting with an audience of more than 200 focusing on recent allegations of sexual abuse of residents at Castle Manor by a nursing home aide at the home. According to family members, it took days for the nursing home to file the sexual abuse claims with the Department of Health, and the accused abuser continued to work at the home for weeks after the initial complaint was made.

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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.

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The elderly man at a Nova Scotia nursing home had fallen to the floor in his bathroom during the overnight hours of May 5-6. No one knows how long he had been lying there, but the light from the bathroom prompted his roommate to ring the call bell to have staff turn off the light.

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Wes Bledsoe, founder of the victim’s advocacy group A Perfect Cause, cautioned Norman, Oklahoma, residents to heed the warning signs of neglect in patients in the state’s nursing homes, citing a study by the national coalition Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes. The study found that nursing home residents in Oklahoma had more pressure sores compared to the national average, according to NewsOK.

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A watchdog group that advocates for the developmentally disabled is pressuring Nebraska state leaders to look into the care at the troubled state-run Beatrice State Developmental Center, according to the Fremont Tribune.

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Wes Bledsoe, the founder of the watchdog group A Perfect Cause, returns to Albert Lea, Minnesota, this week to meet again with families of victims allegedly abused during the widely publicized “attacks for thrills” incident at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune. While in town, Bledsoe also will attend the arraignments of two of the nurses charged with in the crimes.

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Last week, when a nurse at Southtown Nursing Home in Bixby, Oklahoma, walked in on restorative aide Edward Lee Marshall giving a blind, physically and mentally handicapped patient a bath, she felt sure she had witnessed something inappropriate. It appeared Marshall was not bathing the patient, but masturbating him. She immediately contacted management, who called the police, according to The Tulsa World.

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Kathleen Chmura thought it was her soda that tasted funny. Then she realized it was the ice. And it tasted like urine.

Chmura had scooped the ice from the ice bin at By the Lake senior assisted living facility she owns in Hayden, Idaho. She immediately had a suspect in mind – a disgruntled employee who had just joined two other employees in a walkout to protest of a firing of two employees three days prior, according to The Seattle Times.

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The “attacks-for-thrills” case where four nursing home aides were accused of abusing cognitively impaired residents at Good Samaritan Society in Albert Lea, Minn., for entertainment, has captured the attention of a national watchdog group, according to the Star Tribune.

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A Washington state advocacy group is hoping to raise awareness of the problem of abuse and neglect by caregivers of the elderly and disabled before voters approve Initiative 1029 on November 4, according to Columbian.com.

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