Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

Steven M. Levin was once again recognized as a leading authority on nursing home abuse and neglect. In an interview with Lawyers and Settlements, Levin discussed the state of the nursing home industry and the role litigation plays in defining the limits of acceptable behavior. The article focuses on Levin’s success with Levin & Perconti in procuring record judgments and settlements against nursing homes for violations of the standard of care. Levin also discussed the fact that, instead of addressing the main cause of nursing home issues - namely understaffing, facilities are adjusting their governance structure to avoid liability. This would only further deteriorate the struggling nursing home industry.

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Two brothers who owned a nursing home have plead guilty to charges of medical assistance fraud, conspiracy, embezzlement, and neglect of patients. The brothers have admitted to using Medicaid funds for personal use, instead of spending them on nursing home care. As a result, they failed to provide their nursing home residents with food, medicine, bed linens, and sanitary conditions. They also stole $82,000 from the Patients Needs Accounts at three nursing homes. Read more here.

A new study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that an influenza pandemic would be disastrous for United States nursing homes. Apparently, nursing homes are ill-equipped to fight the infection on a large scale. The study examined 400 homes and discovered that only 23% of those have a developed pandemic influenza plan. While another 25% have an influenza plan that is integrated with the disaster response plan, the study found that such integrated influenza plans were inadequate. All other nursing homes, 52% of the total, had no plan at all. The study deems it necessary for nursing homes to have established plan because in a true emergency, hospitals may be unable to accommodate nursing home residents and, thus, nursing home staff need to be able to act in the same manner that hospital staff would. Read more here.

Congress is now considering HB 6064, called the National Silver Alert Act. The Act would establish a national "Silver Alert" communications network that would assist in search efforts for missing seniors on a national and local level. The Act would also assign a Silver Alert Coordinator in the Department of Justice to coordinate the Silver Alert network with the states and would provide for grant funding to individual states to support these efforts. Hopefully, this Act can improve state resources for finding missing seniors. This problem affects nursing homes frequently; elopement is a growing problem in nursing home abuse and neglect cases where residents' movements are not supervised or controlled. Eloping and wandering nursing home residents often are found injured when they leave the nursing home and cannot provide for themselves.

Read the full text of the Act here.

The Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act, also known as the Nursing Home Arbitration Bill has been passed by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial Law and Administrative Law. The nursing home legislation, if passed by the Senate will prevent nursing homes in Illinois and all across the nation from requiring the elderly residents in nursing home to sign an arbitration agreement to gain admission. Amendments did not pass that attempted to exclude nursing home employees and nursing home physicians from the bill. To read more about this piece of nursing home legislation that may bring a change to Illinois nursing home residents click here.

An Illinois funeral home has come under scrutiny after mistreatment of an elderly individual. In this case the elderly deceased was wrongfully buried. The family of the deceased went to the funeral home but was shown another deceased individual. The family had obtained legal help to get a court order for the funeral home to undo this tragic mistake: exhume the wrongfully buried grandmother. It is unknown if the family will file a negligence suit for the emotional distress, pain and suffering and anxiety the incident caused them. Although negligent care, negligent abuse and neglect are common at nursing homes in Illinois it is rare to see such negligence continue to affect an individual in the afterlife. To read about this devastating mix-up click here.

Vunies High, the sister of famous boxer Joe Louis, died earlier this year in an independent living facility. High was 92 and had early stages of Alzheimer’s when she was found dead outside of The Heatherwood in February of this year. She had apparently wandered outside where she then died. Yesterday a lawsuit was filed by High’s family against the senior living management corporation that ran the facility. In the suit, the family alleges that the company labeled itself and independent living center yet provided the same services that a nursing home or assisted living facility would. The company may have designated itself as an independent living facility because in the state where the accident occurred nursing homes and assisted living facilities are strictly regulated while independent living facilities are not. High’s family was not aware of this distinction when they placed High in The Heatherwood. Read more here.

As a result of the notoriously substandard care provided by nursing homes throughout the country, elderly individuals in need of assistance are turning to home-care providers to the extent that the home-care industry constitutes two of the top three fastest growing occupations in the U.S. However, partly because of this staggering growth, regulation of home-care workers has been inadequate. Recently, home-care workers were convicted of theft, abuse, and even manslaughter.

One of the principal reasons for this trend is the lack of regulation of the home-healthcare industry. A majority of states do not require criminal background checks for wannabe providers leading to situations where felons convicted of burglary are able to easily access elderly patients’ homes. Illinois is among the few states that requires home-care providers be licensed and screen their employees. However, until other states follow the trend, elder abuse will continue to move from nursing homes into our own homes.

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The estate of Ivory Jackson, who was fatally beaten by his roommate at All Faith Pavilion Nursing Home in Chicago, Illinois has filed suit against the home. The lawsuit alleges negligence by the nursing home and seeks damages in excess of $50,000. The roommate, Solomon Owasanoye, 50, has been charged with first-degree murder for his actions leading to Jackson’s death. Jackson, 77, was paired as a roommate with Owasanoye who had been diagnosed with dementia. Jackson's estate alleges that the nursing home acted improperly by placing Jackson, who had Alzheimer’s disease, with Owasanoye, who had dementia. Read more here.

Nursing home legislation has been passed regarding proper nutrition at nursing homes across the world. Recent legislation to protect the aging populations in other nations has been passed to prevent food borne illness outbreaks and gastroenteritis. Many nursing homes place residents on strict diets as prescribed by their physicians to prevent food allegries, diabetes reactions and choking in nursing homes. As other countries react to the aging nursing home populations and the need for proper nursing home supervision in the food nursing home residents eat hopefully American nursing homes will follow suit. To read the full story about nursing home food safety click here.

NCCNHR is seeking nominations for individuals who have made a significant difference in long term and nursing care for its 2008 Leadership Awards for outstanding service to nursing home and long term care residents. Nominations are due to NCCNHR by July 18. Awards will be presented at the NCCNHR annual meeting and conference in Indianapolis, IN on October 15 through 17.

For more information and nomination forms, visit NCCNHR: www.nccnhr.org

A nursing home resident is alleging that staff members at his long-term care facility failed to give him his vital medication. Richard Ward claims that the staff at Life Care Center of Plano failed to administer blood-thinners that were necessary to avoid clotting. Ward entered the home after suffering two heart attacks in five days. A retired Army emergency medicine physician’s assistant, Ward asked staff questions after he began feeling worse while at the home. When he asked the medication technician what pills he was being given, the person replied that they were the ones his doctor wanted him to take. When Ward finally saw a doctor, two days into his stay, the doctor found that his blood clotting time had dropped, against specific instructions from Ward’s doctors. That is when the doctor realized that Ward was not being given either of his prescribed blood thinning medications. Later, after a battle about receiving these necessary medications, Ward failed to receive a shot that was supposed to be administered every 12 hours. The shot, which was to be injected at 5 am, was not administered until almost 10 am, and only after Ward had to complain. The next round, that evening, was again late and when Ward inquired, a technician told him no injection had been ordered, but when he forced them to look at their book, the technician realized the medication had in fact been ordered.

After ending his stay early, Ward requested his medical records from the facility, which showed numerous discrepancies. In the report, Ward was called by three different names: Thomas, Robert, and Richard. One page showed that he was received his medications on the first day he arrived, but the original order form showed that those medications were never even ordered, and another page proved that the doctor had made the orders two days later. Ward said his biggest fear in this whole ordeal is for people who do not have medical backgrounds and can not ensure for their own care. Read more about how Ward made an official complaint with his state’s Department of Aging and Disability Services here.