› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Beasley Allen attorney J.P. Sawyer is representing the family of an Arkansas man who suffered at the hands of staff ill-equipped to care for him at the White Hall Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The complaint alleges the nursing home facility put profits over people, misrepresenting its ability to properly care for residents in order to hold onto government funding.
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.
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.
A watchdog group that advocates for the developmentally disabled is pressuring Nebraska state leaders to look into the care at the troubled state-run Beatrice State Developmental Center, according to the Fremont Tribune.
Thelma Bryant, a 94-year-old woman at Kane Glen Hazel nursing home in Pittsburgh, Pa., was hit in the head, struck in the chest with an elbow, had oranges thrown at her, had her feet stomped, and was cussed at by center employees who were charged with providing her care, according to MSNBC.
Former nurse’s aide Jaclyn Dawn VanWinkle doesn’t understand why her dancing and singing to a nursing home patient has caused such a ruckus, according to Lexington (Ken.) Living. The 25-year-old woman was arrested and charged with wanton neglect of an 84-year-old resident at Madison Manor Nursing Home in Richmond, Ken., where VanWinkle was employed. At least eight other employees face criminal charges, according to the report.
The records kept by LPNs Rima Chaudhry and Toni Miller and CNAs Betty Cheslak and Jacqueline Francis at Medford Multicare Center for Living in Suffolk, NY, showed they did their jobs. They bathed, changed and rotated their patients, followed doctors’ orders for their care. They even took precautions when moving patients to ensure no one was injured in the process.
But hidden surveillance cameras set up over a six-week period in some patient’s rooms by the Attorney General’s office told a different story, according to the North County Gazette.
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.
This week, members of the U.S. Senate will consider a bill that will establish a nationwide system of background checks for individuals who apply for jobs at long-term care facilities, The Daily Times (Farmington, New Mexico) reported today. If passed, the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act would allow nursing homes to choose not to hire potentially abusive caregivers based on a coordinated system of checks against abuse and neglect registries, state police records and the FBI national database of criminal history records.
On March 3, the Des Moines Register reported that in 2007 the state fined 23 Iowa nursing homes $10,000 or more for providing substandard care. Some of those homes were also hit with federal fines and sanctions against their state licenses.
