› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
The black box warning on the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal says it all: “Increased mortality in elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis.” But Bruce Bowman’s children claim they were never told by the nursing home staff that cared for their father that the medication he was being given could kill him.
Jan Reshetar stood up at a press conference last week and said she thought her mother-in-law’s agitation was caused by her Alzheimer’s disease. She was mortified to learn that her 84-year-old family member was actually trying desperately to communicate through her cognitively impaired state, trying to tell her family about the humiliating abuse and sexual taunting she was subjected to for months as a resident of the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn.
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.
John Whalen visited 87-year-old Bernice Mulch weekly at a Jacksonville, Ill., nursing home. Whalen, who had legal authority over the woman’s care, had no reason to believe that his friend was not getting adequate care. After she passed away, the Morgan County coroner investigated her death and determined that that Mulch’s death was caused by a nursing home staff member’s failure to follow doctor’s orders to give her antibiotics for an arm infection. As a result, the nursing home was fined $10,000 by the state, according to the State Journal-Register.
Here is an update on a story we reported last month about an investigation into a Rockland County, N.Y., nursing home where a 90-year-old nun was killed when the closet in her room toppled over onto her. According to Lo Hud, New York’s Lower Hudson Valley newspaper, in the wake of the investigation into Summit Park Nursing Care, the patient-services administrator has announced he plans to resign and the maintenance director is taking an early retirement package. The nursing home’s patient-services administrator Aldo Trolani also served as the county’s acting commissioner of hospitals for the Department of Hospitals.
A Washington, D.C.-area emergency room doctor fed up with seeing so many patients from one area nursing home sick from obvious neglect, spoke to ABC 7/News Channel 8 to warn others of the poor care offered at the home.
The doctor said he routinely sees patients from Grand Park Care Center on the verge of death with serious conditions ranging from acute kidney problems, severe pneumonia and malnutrition. He said the conditions indicate neglect by caregivers.
Richland, S.C., County Coroner Gary Watts is raising questions about the quality of care at Midlands-area assisted living homes, according to The State. Watts referred to three deaths in the past two years in the area. One of those deaths, which Watts is investigating, occurred after an unqualified staffer gave a 50-year-old man an overdose of insulin that ultimately killed him.
George King Sr., of Charleston, W.V., lived in Heartland of Charleston nursing home. He had Alzheimer’s Disease, and like many individuals suffering from the memory-loss disorder, King was prone to wander.
Many nursing homes who care for patients with Alzheimer’s have practices in place to ensure patients who wander stay within the nursing home wing where they live. But few practices are foolproof.
No one expected Sister Mary Murray to die the way she did.
While in her room at the Summit Park Nursing Home in Rockland County, New York, the 90-year-old nun was crushed and eventually died after the closet in her room toppled over onto her. Her family accepted the nursing home’s explanation. It was just a freak accident.
Then came the ABC 7 Eyewitness News investigation that revealed that two other residents in the home were injured by falling closets.
The Ontario, Canada coroner’s office blames a malfunctioning lifting device for the death of a 67-year-old Toronto nursing home resident, according to The (Toronto) Star.
