News Tagged ‘neglect

Nursing home corporation faces manslaughter charges

No one disputes that 74-year-old Julia McCauley, a resident at Life Care Center of Acton in rolled her wheelchair outside the front door of the home where she had lived five years. She had done it on more than one occasion. But in August of 2004, her trip through the exit resulted in her tumbling down a flight of stairs. She died shortly after the fall.

Read the rest of this entry »

Illinois nursing home advocates fight proposed bill to refund fines

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Staffers leave nursing home residents unattended

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Facility facing lawsuits for leaving patients unattended

The wife of an 80-year-old who suffered from dementia moved her husband into Elderberry Square assisted living facility in Florence, Oregon, so the staff there could give her husband the care she could no longer manage on her own. But each time she visited him over the two months he was there, something just didn’t seem right. Her frail husband was left unsupervised, during which he fell repeatedly. One fall resulted in a broken wrist. She also found him several times lying in his own waste.

Read the rest of this entry »

New rule makes obtaining nursing home information more difficult

A new rule issued in September by the Bush Administration has made a once routine process of obtaining information from nursing homes to back up claims of and neglect almost impossible. That juggernaut has people who are suing nursing homes wrangling between state and federal officials, according to the Washington Post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maryland may allow video surveillance of nursing home rooms

Had it not been for  video surveillance in nursing homes throughout state, many nursing home residents who were the victims of neglect and at the hands of their caregivers would still be suffering. The use of has become so effective in prosecuting the offenders there that over the past few months Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has increased the number of nursing homes that have cameras.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nursing home found guilty in death of man left on bedpan for 24 hours

Shirley Gerhardt admitted her 76-year-old husband Richard into Laurel Canyon nursing home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December of 2005. He has suffered a broken hip and just couldn’t get around well. On Christmas day, Gerhardt was placed on a bedpan, and forgotten by staff. He sat there, on the bedpan, for 24 hours as the pan began to imbed into his skin. He suffered an open wound that became infected and lead to his death just five days later, according to Wired PR News.

Read the rest of this entry »

Police: nursing home staff tried to cover up patient’s cause of death

An investigation into the death of Sarah Wentworth has taken an even more tragic turn. The 89-year-old woman was found dead outside in her Itasca, Illinois nursing home’s courtyard earlier this month wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Since she suffered from dementia, which can make its victims prone to wandering, she wore an ankle bracelet that would trigger an alarm if she crossed the threshold to the outdoors. So why didn’t anyone seem to know how Wentworth wandered out in the first place?

Read the rest of this entry »

Nursing home advocate says to heed warning signs of neglect, abuse

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Health dept rules maltreatment was cause of patient’s broken neck

A report of maltreatment against Presbyterian Homes nursing home in Arden Hills, Minnesota, is being investigated following an incident where a resident suffered a neck injury and subsequently died, according to Fox Twin Cities.

Read the rest of this entry »