Ombudsmen provide a valuable service to the elderly. Not only do they serve as advocates to nursing home residents, they also investigate and resolve complaints and make unannounced visits to nursing homes to ensure residents’ needs are being met. An estimated 40 percent of nursing home residents have no family or friends to visit with or advocate for them.

A spokesperson with Ombudsman Services of Northern California says mandatory reporting of incidents has dropped though the number of residents in the homes has increased – a formula which doesn’t make sense. The group is concerned that the 1,600 northern California nursing homes and assisted living facilities regularly serviced by the program will begin to see a rise in senior abuse.

Instead of visiting assisted living facilities once a month and nursing homes weekly, since the budget cuts ombudsmen visits have dropped to once a year for assisted living facilities and monthly for nursing homes.

According to the report, Assemblyman Dave Jones, (D) Sacramento, has co-authored legislation to restore ombudsman funding. That bill would direct money to the ombudsman programs from fines levied against care home operators who break the law.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › CA long-term care facilities suffer from cuts to ombudsman program

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The cost to refund the program would come from penalty accounts, or accounts paid into by nursing homes who have been fined for not complying with federal and state laws.

Feuer also introduced a bill that requires nursing homes to prominently post quality care ratings so that individuals seeking long term care for family members can make educated decisions on the care options available to them. The ratings are based on a federal five-star program that rates nursing homes based on health inspection results, staffing levels and quality measures.

A third bill introduced by Feuer seeks to establish the Reverse Mortgage Elder Protection Act of 2009, offering new rights for senior citizens considering reserve mortgages. Reverse mortgages are a special type of loan that gives homeowners access to their home’s equity in cash payments to supplement income. While reverse mortgages can be beneficial, they may not always be in the best interest for seniors. The bill establishes new guidelines between consumers and reverse mortgage salespeople in an effort to protect seniors from being taken advantage of.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › California lawmaker proposes bills to protect vulnerable seniors

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Authorities began to investigate Kern Valley Healthcare District’s Lake Isabella facility in January 2007 after an ombudsman reported to the California Department of Public Health that a patient had been held down and given an injection by force. An investigation revealed that at least one patient was given injections of mood-altering drugs because she was biting, hitting and kicking others. She never regained consciousness. Another received an injection after arguing with the nursing director and stayed in a zombie-like state for a week.

The California Attorney General’s office says 22 patients were involved. All victims suffered from dementia. Three patients may have died from complications from the drugs and one other may have suffered injuries.

An investigation led to the arrests this week of director of nursing Gwen Hughes and pharmacist Debbi Gayle Hayes. Dr. Hoshang Pormir, a staff physician, is also facing charges for approving the medication requests without first examining the patients. Hughes and Hayes face eight felony charges of causing harm or death to an elder or dependant adult and two felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon through overmedication. Pormir faces eight felony charges of causing harm or death to an elder or dependent adult. If convicted, all three face up to 11 years in prison.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Nursing home staff arrested for administering mood-altering drugs

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Sloan gradually began to hear the truth. CNA Karen Buck had hit and slapped Talbott numerous times in the face causing a black eye and two other facial bruises after Talbott spit at her. Sloan contends that Buck caused her mother pain while putting stockings on her sore feet.

The executive director of Williamsburg Village, now known as Golden Living Center, issued a statement saying that the nursing home had reported the situation to authorities and that the incident had been fully investigated by the state, the ombudsman, the police and the attorney general’s office. The statement claimed, “After the investigations were concluded, the alleged abuse was not substantiated, and the prosecutor has declined to pursue the case.”

However the prosecutor’s office did charge Buck with felony battery resulting in bodily injury. Battery becomes a felony offense when the victim is, among other things, an endangered adult, as was Talbott, who moved into the nursing home after suffering a stroke.

Talbott died less than three months later. Attorneys hired to represent Talbott’s estate claim that the brutal and savage assault and beating Talbott suffered at the hands of Buck, and the nursing home’s negligence, resulted in serious complications that ultimately led to Talbott’s wrongful death.

Golden Living Center has a four-star rating by the federal government, which his based on inspections, staffing levels and quality measurements.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › CNA punches, slaps nursing home patient in face

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If Winchester Centre loses its contract, the home will stop receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments from the federal government and will no longer be certified to care for patients receiving those services. In that event, patients at the home would then be transferred to certified nursing homes, which may result in the closing of Winchester Centre. Officials say they are unsure what will happen to Winchester Centre and that other options besides closing are available, such as bringing in a new group of professionals to run the nursing home and incurring daily fines until specific citations are resolved.

Currently, 166 patients reside in the 183-bed facility. The home offers skilled nursing and rehabilitative care as well as a special unit for patients with dementia. Central Kentucky already has lost 400 Medicaid beds for nursing home patients, said Gannoe. “It’s a disaster for Central Kentucky,” she says.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Kentucky nursing home facing most serious citation

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The nursing home claimed she had not paid her bill in months, and they had no choice but to discharge her. With no family to call on, nursing home officials dropped her off at the next best place they could think of, the hospital emergency room. Later that evening, Ko was taken to Aiea respite home for temporary care.

“I wish someone (at the nursing home) had the courage to tell me what was going on,” Ko told the newspaper reporter.

A Hawaii state agency determined that that no abuse had occurred because the nursing home had dropped Ko off at a safe place, a hospital. However, the Department of Human Services called the drop-off inappropriate, and said it would refer the case to the Department of Health.

Nu’uano Hale is rated as “poor” on a new rating system recently unveiled by the federal government, earning one star out of a possible five.

Ko is in a situation referred to by officials as the“gap group.”  Her personal finances did not allow her to qualify for Medicaid but she earned too little from Social Security and an annuity to cover nursing home costs.

“We will likely see more people needing assistance,” says Anne Holton, a long-term-care ombudsman specialist with the Hawaii Executive Office on Aging. “With the boomers coming up, there’s going to be a whole new tide of people looking at that.”

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Nursing home resident discharged, dropped off at ER

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Measuring the quality of a nursing home is not always clear-cut. More that 1.5 million people live in 15,000 nursing homes throughout the country. Each facility is inspected annually and must meet federal standards in order to participate in Medicaid and Medicare. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has established the site to give the public a better understanding of how nursing homes compare to others.

The site rates three criteria – health inspection, nursing home staff and quality measures. Those three criteria make up the nursing home’s overall rating. The “health inspection” criteria is the data from the last three standard health inspections and all complaint inspections that have been conducted in the last three years. “Nursing home staffing” criteria is gathered from the most recent health inspection and ranks homes based on overall staffing hours and the type of staff employed. “Quality measures” criteria is reported by each nursing home and is based on 19 quality measures collected from residents.

Five stars indicate a nursing home that is “much above average,” and one star indicates a nursing home is “much below average.” An orange icon indicates homes that are considered Special Focus Facilities (SFF), or homes that have a history of persistent poor quality of care.

Those who visit the site can look up nursing home by name, zip code, state or county. Those listings can be further refined into subsets such as “nursing homes within a continuing care retirement community,” “nursing homes within a hospital,” and “nursing homes with resident and family councils.”

While the Nursing Home Compare site offers valuable information, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recommends that family members visit nursing homes they are considering; talk with doctors or other healthcare practitioners, family and friends about their choices; and contact the long-term care ombudsman or State Survey Agency before making a decision.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Web site lists ratings of all nursing homes in country

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“We were just so desperate to know the truth and for other people to know the truth,” said Armeda’s granddaughter, Deborah Hamilton in a story in the Lexington Herald-Leader. “Almost everyone has a relative who gets care in a facility. You want to be able to go to sleep at night knowing that your loved one is well cared for and not scared.”

What the video tape revealed was heartbreaking – Armeda was helpless as nursing assistants physically abused and taunted her – pulling her from the bed by her wrists and neck – and even failed to feed and clean her. The tape resulted in an investigation into “injuries of unknown origin” on a total of 17 residents who, like Armeda, were cognitively impaired. That investigation led to a citation by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services against Madison Manor for not adequately investigating the patients’ injuries.

Armeda’s family moved her home. She died on Nov. 7.

The district ombudsman said she has received 17 complaints about Madison Manor this year and as a result has opened 11 cases.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Family secretly video tapes abuse of nursing home resident

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The doctor said he routinely sees patients from Grand Park Care Center on the verge of death with serious conditions ranging from acute kidney problems, severe pneumonia and malnutrition. He said the conditions indicate neglect by caregivers.

Inspection reports obtained by the television station from the D.C. Department of Health from February and May 2008, reveal numerous deficiencies including failure of nursing staff to notify a physician of a resident’s dehydration, and weight changes and anemia of a resident. According to Jerry Kasunic, D.C. long-term care ombudsman, his staff has filed more than 100 complaints with the Department of Health.

“The neglect and abuse we have seen there is unattended wound care (and) dehydration that has led to malnutrition,” Kasunic said in the report. He specifically reference a recent care where one man from the home entered the hospital critically malnourished. It was obvious to Kasunic that the patient, who was unable to communicate, had received no fluids of any kind.

The nursing home issued a statement saying it is committed to quality improvement and has since hired a new director of nursing and a compliance officer.

Both Kasunic and an inspector with the Department of Health say that the city’s health department needs to be more aggressive in ensuring patients in area nursing homes receive proper care.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Doctor warns of inadequate care at D.C. nursing home

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But John fought back. He saw a poster in his California nursing home about the Ombudsman program, and he made a call. Ombudsmanship Program Director Kathi Toepel paid John a personal visit and, after insisting they talk privately in his room, he asked her to save his toes.

“I’m 92 years old and want to leave this world with the 10 toes the good Lord gave me,” he said.

Toepel discussed John’s case with his doctor and expressed that John was, in fact, able to make his own healthcare decisions. He wanted to save his toes, and Toepel made sure that his will was done.

John lived another 14 months, but he died the way he wanted, with his body intact. “While I understand these are very difficult decisions for family, friends and caretakers to accept, I know that John died with the dignity and respect he deserved,” Toepel said.

Ombudsmen provide a valuable service to the elderly. Not only do they serve as advocates to nursing home residents, they also investigate and resolve complaints and make unannounced visits to nursing homes to ensure residents’ needs are being met. But this valuable program is in jeopardy in California.

According to the Union Democrat, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used a line item veto to cut the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program out of the budget. The program receives about half its budget from the state. The rest is made up through federal funds and other sources.

While program officials hope the missing state funds will be raised by the community, they are meeting to find ways to through the situation.

This is a tragedy for all nursing home residents, especially the estimated 40 percent who have no family or friends to visit or advocate for them.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › California budget cuts jeopardize nursing home resident advocates

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According to the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), no one knows precisely how many older Americans are being abused, neglected, or exploited. This is because there are no official national statistics.

Adding to the problem, there are no federal standards that govern residential care facilities, which are known by more than 30 different names across the country, perhaps most commonly as assisted living facilities.

In her testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance in June 2002, Catherine Hawes, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management School or Rural Public Health at Texas A&M University system Health Science Center, pointed out that there has never been a systematic study of the prevalence of abuse in nursing homes. She said much of what we know is based on individual stories or focus group interviews with residents and families.

But what we do know is frightening.

• According to the best available estimates, between 1 and 2 million Americans age 65 or older have been injured, exploited or otherwise mistreated by someone on whom they depended for care or protection.
  Only 1 in 14 incidents of elder abuse in domestic settings come to the attention of authorities.
  For every one case of elder abuse, neglect, exploitation, or self-neglect reported to authorities, about five more go unreported.

The major types of elder abuse are physical abuse, which includes inappropriate use of drugs and physical restraints; sexual abuse; emotional or psychological abuse, which, in addition to verbal attacks or intimidation includes enforced social isolation and treating an older person like an infant; neglect; abandonment; and financial or material exploitation.

In 2003, state Long Term Care Ombudsman programs nationally investigated 20,673 complaints of abuse, gross neglect, and exploitation on behalf of nursing home and board and care residents. Physical abuse was the most common type reported.

Another study released in 2001 reported that based on information collected between January 1999 and January 2000 by a nursing home complaint database, 10 percent of nursing homes in the U.S. were cited for abuse violations that caused actual harm to residents or placed them in immediate jeopardy of death or serious injury.

If you or a loved one suffered a serious injury due to nursing home abuse or neglect, you have specific legal rights. For a free legal consultation, please contact us today

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › 2 million elderly victims

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