› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
The physical and sexual “abuse-for-thrills” case at Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn., was listed as “far and away the leading news story in the Albert Lea area for 2008,” by the Albert Lea Tribune.
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.
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.
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.
When neglect or abuse is suspected against an Oklahoma nursing home resident, state statutes say the incident should be reported to the Department of Human Services or the Sheriff’s department.
Jack Crow believes the first call should be to the police.
When the Hopley family moved 51-year-old Bruce Hopley into Golden Moments Senior Care Center in Jacksonville, Ill., in late August of 2006, they alerted staff that he was “severely diabetic,” and that he had required emergency hospitalization on numerous occasions for erratic blood sugar levels and seizures. Nineteen days later, just an hour after staff documented high blood sugar levels in his blood, Mr. Hopley was found dead, according to a story by the Jacksonville (Illinois) Journal-Courier.
As for people with family in nursing homes, Kathleen Sadlier says to be careful. “If you have someone there, really keep an eye on everything to see what is going on. Don’t just think they are being taken care of, because they might not be. I feel sorry for those in nursing homes who don’t have family members to watch over them. More people need to speak out about this.”
