› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
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.
Sisters Duanne Bewely, 36, and Fiona Nicolas, 38, worked as a team, running Faith Manor Vermont and Faith Manor Melrose assisted living facilities in south Florida. They marketed themselves as a fully licensed facility and won over the trust of physicians and clinic owners, who would refer patients to their homes. Those health care professionals now say they would have never put patients in the care of the sisters had they known they were lying and cheating the government.
When the Manatee, Florida, high school volunteer saw the two developmentally challenged men sitting alone in the gymnasium after a basketball game, she notified sheriff’s deputies. The deputies questioned the two men, ages 51 and 65, but found them both to be “very confused.” An hour passed before North West Care Center employee Leticia Odessa Peay returned for the men. She said she had taken them to a ball game but that she understood another nursing home employee would be picking them up, according to the Bradenton Herald.
Linda Shaw was supposed to be overseeing 16 residents at Personal Care II assisted living facility in Bradenton, Fla., last summer. But just minutes after she reported for her 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, she walked out the door and never returned, leaving the residents without a caregiver, according to the Bradenton Herald.
Episania Fitzgerald was working her nursing shift at Pine Tree Manor assisted living facility in Largo, Fla., Friday night, but she had someplace better to be. Since she was the only staff member on duty that night, she called on a resident at the home to be in charge of the other residents in her absence. Fitzgerald then walked out the doors, leaving the 21 frail and elderly residents alone.
Nearly 8,500 Florida Medicaid recipients have filed a federal lawsuit seeking class action status for forcing them to live in nursing homes instead of where they choose, according to the Associated Press/Miami Herald. The lawsuit names the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, the Florida Department of Elder Affairs and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s office.
Most people identify the elderly as being the victims of abuse and neglect in a skilled nursing environment. But when it is reported that a nursing home is under investigation for burning a physically and mentally impaired foster child, it is a travesty.
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.
