San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer - Nursing Home & Elder Abuse

Elderly women choked at San Antonio Nursing Home

Beth Janicek — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:58:23 GMT

Janice Maier, 77, was a sleep in her bed at a senior care facility when she was awaken early Saturday morning when a man entered her room, climbed into her bed and began to choke her and repeatedly hit her in the face. The attack occurred at Clare Bridge Specialized Memory Care, a Brookdale Senior Living facility on the Northeast side. Maier was transported to the hospital and was in stable condition on Saturday night.

The San Antonio Police Department incident report said that Maier had never seen her alleged attacker before. Daniel Villarreal, 25, was arrested at the scene after employees called police when they saw him covered in blood in the living facility and then discovered Maier, also covered in blood, on the floor of her bedroom. Maier told police that Villarreal hit her and choked her until she huddled inside a blanket on the floor beside her bed, where he started kicking her. It is unclear how Villarreal gained entry to the facility, which requires key code access.

The police asked Villarreal why he was there and he stated that he was “looking for something.” When asked what he was looking for, he replied, “A lady to choke.” He was “mad at his life and wanted to choke someone.” As of Saturday evening, Villarreal was in the Bexar County Jail on a first-degree felony charge of injury to the elderly with serious bodily injury.

This incident needs to be investigated and the facility should be held responsible for lack of security. Residents are entrusted to their care, and it is their obligation to provide a safe living environment. In addition, an employee should have spotted Mr. Villarreal before he ever made it into a resident’s room. This may be an issue of lack of training, or even a sign that the facility is understaffed. Whatever it is, there is no excuse for this type of attack to occur.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Update on La Salle County Nursing Home Sex Abuse Investigation

Beth Janicek — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:42:30 GMT

Recently I blogged about a La Salle County Nursing Home under investigation due to a male resident molesting 10 female residents. The nursing home now faces monetary damages from federal and possibly state health authorities. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has since sent a recommendation to U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it fine the county $20,000 plus $100 for each day between June 6^th, when the complaint was filed, and July 6^th, when the review showed the nursing home was in “substantial compliance.” IDPH spokesman Melaney Arnold said the IDPH is also still considering fining the nursing home.

The IDPH released a 61-page report after conducting an investigation of the nursing home. The report detailed how the male resident targeted female dementia patients, sometimes those who were non-verbal, and other female residents in an attempt to perform sexual acts on them. The male resident succeeded on 10 different occasions without proper action being taken by nursing home administration officials. IDPH officials determined that the nursing home failed six state requirements including failing to protect current residents and failing to prevent repeated occurrences of sexual abuse.

In Texas, our regulatory agency is Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (TDADS). TDADS needs to be vigilant in protecting the elderly and properly overseeing these nursing homes to ensure the vulnerable elderly are not abused by sexual predators.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Sex Offenders in Nursing Homes

Beth Janicek — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:38:00 GMT

A male resident at La Salle County Nursing Home who molested 10 female residents earlier this year has been moved from the nursing home to an unidentified psychiatric facility. Incidents, such as this one, have led to the questions:

Can sex offenders live in county homes?
What has the county done to protect women at nursing homes?

The La Salle County Nursing Home has taken more than a dozen steps after the Illinois Department of Public Health said that administrators failed to protect female residents from the molestations of a male resident. Steps included four staff meetings addressing matters of abuse prevention, resident rights, and incident investigation. Female residents were questioned and care plans were updated. In addition, the chairman of the La Salle County Board’s Nursing Home Committee will start directly supervising and overseeing the homes administration.

Even though the male resident has since been removed from the home, according to records there is still a registered sex offender in the county home. There is no indication that he had anything to do with the series of incidents involving a resident molesting several female residents. However, there are specific guidelines that must be followed by nursing homes involving sex offenders.

In Illinois, the nursing home is required to tell the Illinois Department of Public Health about any resident who is a sex offender and must do a “risk analysis” of the offender to determine whether staff will be able to care for the offender and to prepare a care plan. The sex offender must be placed in a private room and the home is required to tell residents, prospective residents, and families they can ask whether an offender lives at the home.

I am currently handling a claim involving the nursing homes standard of care in protecting residents from sexual assault. A male resident returned home from a baseball game after being served alcohol, gained entrance to a cognitively impaired female resident’s room and sexually assaulted her. The nursing home failed to protect the resident from being sexually assaulted resulting in the physical and mental injury of the resident. It is exceptionally important for facilities to properly monitor and supervise to ensure the safety of all their residents.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Nursing Home in Oklahoma Lost its Certification Due to Violations

Beth Janicek — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:38:27 GMT

Care Living Center in Edmond, Oklahoma is having its certification pulled because of deficiencies found by state health inspectors, resulting in more than two dozen Medicare and Medicaid residents being forced to move. Officials said that the deficiencies centered on medical and nursing neglect.

Mary Fleming, the state health department’s director of survey, said examples of neglect included some residents who were not being turned or cleaned and in some instances were not fed. Inspectors found one resident with 17 pressure ulcers and who was not receiving appropriate treatment ordered by a physician. Fleming also said that there was no one to answer residents’ call lights and that staff members were not trained appropriately.

“They were not following doctor’s orders to care for medical problems, like not monitoring blood glucose for diabetics, not monitoring blood pressure for residents with hypertension or strokes, and not putting people in isolation that had infectious diseases.”

In addition, two residents had wandered away from the facility and were found several blocks away.

Home administrator, Vincent Dike, said the new owners, Quality Health Care LLC, only took over the nursing home in November and needed more time to correct the problems.

Dike said, “This facility had problems in the past before the new management came in, but we worked aggressively and corrected most of the deficiencies. We were hoping within the next visit that we would be in good standing. But to our surprise, they said ‘We have given you three chances, and that’s all the state allows you to have.’”

The federal agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, allows a maximum of three revisits to a facility, and then they terminate. The facility can work out the deficiencies and apply for recertification, but it will be a long process.

The facility is losing Medicaid patients and Medicare patients. The termination does not affect 18 of the facility’s private pay residents, but Dike said that the owners may find it difficult to keep the doors open.

I would like to see the Texas regulatory agency, TDADS, be this aggressive with facilities. It is very difficult on the residents to move facilities, but it is in the best interest of the residents for these regulatory agencies to be vigilant in protecting the vulnerable patients.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Stabilizing the CNA Workforce

Beth Janicek — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:44:06 GMT

Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) handle the direct care of 1.5 million nursing home residents in the United States, providing about 8 out of every 10 hours of resident care. According to the study “The National Nursing Assistant Survey: Improving the Evidence Base for Policy Initiatives to Strengthen the Certified Nursing Assistant Workforce” current demographic, economic, and policy trends suggest that the supply of CNAs could significantly worsen in the coming decades.

The study found that almost half of CNAs are minority and the vast majority is female with no more than a high school diploma, or GED. The median average wage found in 2004 was $10.04. Almost half of the CNAs were living on a single income due to being divorced, separated, widowed, or never married. Although it was found that CNAs work full time (36.8 hr/week), almost 2/3 lived on an annual family income of less than $30,000, and between 20% and 40% had at some point received public benefits, such as food stamps or rental subsidies. About 16% of CNAs working in nursing homes were uninsured, and in addition to that, 42% did not participate in their employer-offered health insurance because they could not afford the plan.

The study stated,

“More than half (56%) of CNAs incurred at least one injury on the job in the previous year. Among the CNAs injured, almost half (45%) sustained scratches, open wounds, or cuts; about one fifth had back injuries (18%), black eyes or other bruising (16%), or other strains or pulls (16%); and about one tenth had human bites (12%) or other injuries (7%; not shown). Of the CNAs who had been injured at least once in the previous year, almost one quarter were unable to work for at least 1 day due to the injury.”

Some of the main reasons for CNA injuries are lack of equipment (ex. for lifting and transferring residents), lack of training on the proper use of equipment, lack of training on managing resident behaviors, and working short staffed. This study makes it possible to do a closer examination of and comparison between facility and CNA reports of when injuries occur, injury prevention training offered, availability of safety equipment, frequency of working short staffed, and extent of vacancies and turnover.

Findings from this study will hopefully allow policymakers to assess and plan for sustainable solutions for the CNA nursing home workforce. It has been found that low wages contribute to high turnover and the need of working overtime or even working an additional job. Long hours may add to mistakes, affecting the residents’ safety and the quality of care. The elderly deserve better care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

$11 Million Verdict in Assisted Living Case

Beth Janicek — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:11:02 GMT

An Arizona jury awarded $11 million, the largest verdict ever awarded against an assisted living facility in the United States, to the widow of a 36-year-old man with a traumatic brain injury who died after ingesting foreign objects while in the care of Liberty Manor Residency. The verdict included $2 million for the decedent, $5 million for the wife, and $4 million in punitive damages. Lydia Scherrer, widow of Earl Scherrer, said “I want this to be a lasting victory for all individuals with TBI or other disabilities living in assisted living centers or group homes.”

Earl Scherrer suffered a severe traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident in 1996. He remained in a coma for 16 months before he began to slowly emerge. Mrs. Scherrer worked with her husband every day and eventually he slowly started to speak. She devoted many hours a week to her husband’s recovery, but was forced to turn to an assisted living facility to provide the 24-hour care that her husband required. For years she visited him faithfully, even checking him out of the facility and taking him home on her days off, every Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mrs. Scherrer placed her husband in Liberty Manor Residency on April 7, 2006, a facility that claimed to provide 24-hour supervision of its residents. Exactly one month later, on May 7, 2006, Mrs. Scherrer received a call saying that her husband had been vomiting. She rushed over to Liberty Manor and brought her husband home and gave him a bath. Within minutes he began vomiting black matter and died in her arms.

The autopsy results showed plastic bags, unopened catsup packets, candy wrappers, and paper towels were found in Earl Scherrer’s stomach and small intestine. The medical examiner determined that these objects were significant contributing factors to his death. The autopsy report read “hypertensive heart disease due to mechanical obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract from foreign objects.”

At trial it was proven that Liberty Manor made numerous false entries in its charts with respect to Mr. Scherrer’s care. There were notations of care on days when Mrs. Scherrer had checked him out of the facility, and Liberty Manor was unable to produce Mr. Scherrer’s alleged caregiver.

Lydia Scherrer’s attorney Craig Knapp said, “Lydia Scherrer did not walk away from her husband, in life or in death. Her hope is that this verdict will force the assisted living facility industry to set and meet higher standards of care for their residents, resulting in enhanced protections for the defenseless individuals trusted to the care of others.”

Cases like this one should not happen. It is enormously important for assisted living facilities, as well as nursing homes, to provide the care that they promise. If Liberty Manor Residency could not provide the 24-hour supervision of Mr. Scherrer, he should have immediately been transferred. Most cases, such as this one, are based on the fact that the assisted living facility failed to transfer the resident once it became apparent that they were no longer capable of caring for them. In addition to failing to provide the promised 24-hour supervision of Mr. Scherrer, Liberty Manor Residency falsified nursing documents in an attempt to cover up that fact that he was not receiving adequate supervision.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Life Care Center Faces Manslaughter Charges

Beth Janicek — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:51:00 GMT

On the morning of Aug. 17, 2004, Julia McCauley, 74, rolled her wheelchair out the front doors of the Life Care Center of Acton, and tumbled down a flight of stairs. She died a short time later. McCauley was not wearing a doctor-prescribed WanderGuard bracelet designed to set off an alarm and lock the doors if she got too close to the exit.

Attorney General Martha Coakley believes that McCauley’s death could have been avoided had she been wearing her electronic bracelet and that the nursing home’s parent company, Life Care Centers of America, should be held responsible.

The corporation is charged with Manslaughter and neglect of a long-term care facility resident.

However, Life Care Center officials claim that “McCauley’s death, though a tragedy, was an unfortunate accident in a long-term care facility striving to provide the best possible care.”

They also say that prosecuting the corporation will cause a backlash against nursing homes, hospitals, and healthcare facilities where accidents inevitably occur.

Rob Alderman, Life Care’s director public relations said, “Julia McCauley was a beloved member of our community and a part of our family. At the end of the day, her death was an accident, not a crime. We are looking forward very much to having out good name cleared.”

Life Care operates more than 200 facilities in 28 states. The Acton facility where McCauley was a resident had been the target of state and federal fines in the past. In 2005 the facility was fined $2,112 and again in December 2006 fined $11,147 for various deficiencies found during routine state checks. In July 2007, state and federal regulators imposed fines totaling more than $164,000, which were eventually rescinded after a more extensive investigation.

Attorney General Coakley held a press conference last week to announce her support for legislation to increase the maximum fine for a corporation convicted of manslaughter from $1,000, which was enacted in 1819, to $250,000. Even if the Legislature approves the change in law, it would not apply to the Life Care case.

In the past we have blogged about similar tragedies occurring at nursing homes. Accidents, such as Mrs. McCauley’s, occur much too often. Regardless of the fact that she was a “beloved member” of the Life Care Center’s community, this was an accident that could have easily been avoided. I am pleased to see the criminal prosecutor pursuing the protection of the elderly by holding this company accountable.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

89 Year Old Alzheimer’s Patient Freezes to Death

Beth Janicek — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:02:17 GMT

The family of an 89 year old nursing home resident suffering from Alzheimer’s has filed a lawsuit against the facility in connection with her death on February 5^th. The family of Sarah Wentworth claims that staff members at the Arbor of Itasca nursing home failed to investigate when Wentworth triggered an alarm as she apparently wandered into a courtyard during freezing weather. Wentworth was later found frozen to death at the Itasca, Illinois nursing home.

The door to the courtyard was rigged with an alarm that sounded whenever it was opened, reports the Chigagotribune.com. But the staff on duty the night Sarah Wentworth died apparently paid no attention to the alarm. Wentworth’s family alleges that a 23 year old staff member on the night in question was watching television nearby when the alarm was tripped. But instead of getting up to check if a patient had wandered into the courtyard, the staffer assumed that someone went out for a cigarette, and subsequently turned the alarm off.

Tom Hendrix, an attorney for the nursing home, did not respond directly to the allegations but said that "policies and procedures were in place for the supervision and safety of residents, including an alarm system which was in working order." Hendrix also said some employees had been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

This type of tragedy is all too common today. Alarms on doors and windows have long been used at nursing homes as a way of assuring patients’ safety, but often staff will ignore them, as happened to Ms. Wentworth. An alternative is to equip patients with bands with remotes that automatically lock doors whenever a patient gets too close. But then there is the problem of staff or others opening or holding doors open for the patients, thereby defeating the safety system. The issue is one of staff competency, not sufficiency.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find adequate care for our elderly family and friends. A good start to preventing injuries to the elderly in the nursing home context is to research long-care facilities through Medicare.gov. This website has guidelines on what to look for when deciding on a long-care facility for a loved one. In addition, talk to the staff and patients and try to get a feel for whether your loved one would receive proper care prior to agreeing to anything.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Alzheimer’s-Ridden Pro-wrestling Legend Kills Fellow Nursing Home Resident

Beth Janicek — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:25:23 GMT

Verne Gagne, an 82 year old wrestling legend is under investigation after the death of 97 years old, Helmut R. Gutmann, who lived with Gagne in Friendship Village, a Bloomington living facility. Both men suffer from Alzheimer’s related dementia.

Gagne and Gutmann allegedly got into a fight on January 26^th, in which Gutmann suffered a broken leg and a head injury. He was hospitalized, then released, then later re-hospitalized due to complications and later died.

Helmut R. Gutmann had escaped Nazi Germany and was a former cancer research scientist at the University of Minnesota.

Verge Gagne entered the world of wrestling in 1949, and became the perennial champion and owner/promoter of the American Wrestling Association. He later went on to host the weekly TV show, All-Star Wrestling. Gagne was inducted into the World Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1999.

Bloomington Police are investigating the death as suspicious. A manner of death has not officially been determined, but it is believed that Gutmann was body slammed. Gagne was dismissed from the living facility, but due to his mental state it is unknown whether charges will be pressed. A full account of this unfortunate story can be seen here.

It is my belief that incompetent people should not be held responsible or charged with criminal intent if they do not know what they are doing. From what I have read thus far, it appears Mr. Gagne did not have the mental capability to form criminal intent so it is not likely the police will charge him with a crime. Nursing homes need to protect their residents from being injured by other residents. I have not seen an investigation as to what the nursing staff was doing to protect the residents and prevent an incident such as this from ever occurring.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek

Texas Rates 4 in Overall Staffing in Nursing Homes

Beth Janicek — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:30:00 GMT

As the population ages the quality of care in nursing homes has become a mounting concern at the state and national level. The Federal Government has recently changed its approach of evaluating nursing homes. Much like the system used for rating Medicare health and drug plans, the Nursing Home Compare Site rates nursing homes on a five-star quality rating. Each facility is rated from a low of one star to a high of five star based on: health inspection results, quality measures, and staffing levels. Below are the 10 worst states for overall staffing in the United States:

1. Louisiana
2. Georgia
3. Tennessee
4. Texas
5. Virginia
6. Indiana
7. New Mexico
8. West Virginia
9. Missouri
10. North Carolina

There is a strong association between staffing levels and the overall quality of care that residents receive. If nursing homes committed to spend the extra money to appropriately and sufficiently staff their facilities these horrific injuries that occur could be prevented. Facilities that fall below the staffing standards are significantly more likely to have cases of abuse or neglect. According to the Nursing Home Abuse Resource website there are several signs that may indicate cases of abuse or neglect against nursing home residents, such as: bed sores, pressure sores, infections, untreated pain, dehydration, malnutrition, injuries, fractures, rapid weight loss or gain, unsanitary conditions, improper medication administration, lack of supervision.

A study released by U.S. Representatives Ciro Rodriguez and Gene Green in October of 2002 found that there are serious deficiencies in many of the nursing homes in Texas. In fact eighty-six percent of Texas nursing homes violated federal health standards and over one-third of the nursing homes had violations that caused actual harm to residents or placed them at risk of death or serious injury. In addition, over 90% of nursing homes in Texas did not meet the recommended minimum staffing levels identified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

These statistics are particularly worrisome to people who are currently looking for a nursing home for their loved one. Even though this information is scary, it is possible to find a suitable nursing home. Websites such as the Nursing Home Compare Site and the Attorney General of Texas Greg Abbott's page on Senior Texans provides helpful hints such as what to look for and what questions to ask. Some even provided numbers for people who can assist with the gathering of information. Choosing the right nursing home is crucial for the well being of your loved one. Additionally, if the State Legislature would toughen the regulations for staffing, the elderly in Texas would be better protected.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Beth Janicek