› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Robert Townsend of Ellington, Connecticut, tried to convince the governor, several lawmakers and state health investigators that there were suspicious circumstances surrounding his mother’s death. When his complaints fell deaf ears, he decided to take matters into his own hands, filing a lawsuit against the nursing home he says contributed to her death, according to the Journal Inquirer.
The family of Sarah Wentworth can’t imagine how the 89-year-old woman could have wandered outside the Itasca, Illinois nursing home where she lived for more than two years. Wentworth was so frail that she needed assistance just to get out of bed or change her clothes. And since she suffered from dementia, which can make those who suffer from the disease prone to wander, she also wore an ankle bracelet that sounded an alarm if she crossed through the nursing home’s doors to the outside.
Tennessee nursing homes are lobbying the legislature to put a cap on the amount of damages that plaintiffs can collect in court, according to a report in Nashville, Tennessee’s The City Paper. Sixteen states, including Tennessee, do not put monetary limit for damages such as pain and suffering, which has resulted in millions of dollars in damages awarded to victims for nursing homes‘ violations of patient care. The nursing home industry says without damage limits, nursing homes in those states become a target for out-of-state trial lawyers.
A U.S. Justice Department report claims that residents at William F. Green State Veterans Home in Bay Minette, Alabama, suffered significant harm and risk from the facility’s inadequate medical and nursing services, accoding to the Mobile Press Register.
Dean Cole’s dementia was getting unmanageable for his wife, Virginia, so on Dec. 8, 2006, his family moved him into Golden Living Center Greeley nursing home in Oakdale, Minn. Within 20 days he had lost 20 pounds and had slipped into a coma. A month later, the 71-year-old man was dead, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. Star Tribune. The cause? Severe dehydration, renal failure, pneumonia and colitis.
A Portland, Ore., nursing home faces a $2 million lawsuit after a sexual encounter between two residents, according to The Oregonian. According to the report, staff members at Healthcare at Foster Creek saw a 61-year-old woman with dementia standing half-naked in a room with Marko Chandler, a 68-year-old resident who suffered from a lesser case of dementia. The two were not touching, but staff dressed the woman and separated the two. Nursing home staff did not call police or the woman’s family, even though they knew the woman’s cognitive disorder left her unable to consent to such activities.
Hazel Earll, a 65-year-old mentally challenged woman, was doing well in rehab at Great Plains Regional Medical Center in Nebraska, after a total replacement of her right hip. She was soon able to bear weight on her right side. Days later, on Nov. 22, 2006, she was transferred to North Platte Care Centre for further rehabilitation. But instead of improving, her condition got considerably worse, according to the North Platte Bulletin.
Sixty-seven-year-old Melvin Raybon laid helpless in his bed at Tucker Nursing Center in Tucker, Ga., while a bedsore grew on his left buttocks and became infected to the bone, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Staff at the nursing home where he lived should have turned him every two hours to prevent the massive bedsore. However employees said there simply wasn’t enough staff to meet that need. Instead, the attorney representing Raybon’s daughter said he was turned about every four hours.
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.
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.
