In their ongoing series on nursing oversight in the State of California, Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein of ProPublica are out with another story about California’s shortcomings in regulating healthcare professionals. Weber and Ornstein reveal that the national database that tracks dangerous or incompetent caregivers is missing serious disciplinary actions…
In 2007, Dr. David Graham, a drug safety expert with the FDA, testified before Congress and stated that approximately 15,000 people die each year in U.S. nursing homes from the off-label use of anti-psychotic drugs. Off-label use is the use of the drug for a condition it was not intended.…
This story is flat-out disturbing, and started with a concern we have heard many times from the families of our nursing home abuse clients. It began with Phyllis Peters could not wake up her 97-year-old mother, who was residing in Kern Valley Nursing Home. When she complained to Gwen Hughes,…
When a person has very serious concerns that a nursing home resident has been subject to abuse or neglect in the home, a complaint may be filed with the state. The California Department of Public Health (DPH) licenses and certifies all nursing homes in California, and maintains a process for…
A Ventura nursing home called Fillmore Convalescent Center, its owner, and one of its employees were hit with a $7.75 million verdict yesterday after a jury found them liable for elder abuse. It has to be one of the largest verdicts in California in a case involving nursing home abuse…
The Fallbrook Hospital District Skilled Nursing Facility was fined $90,000 by the California Department of Health in a case involving the fall and subsequent death of a resident. The citation was the most severe of its kind arising from inadequate care leading to the death of the resident. Although the…
When police came to a San Bernardino board-and-care home looking for 23-year-old Trevor Castro, they found Castro and a whole lot more. Upon arrival they found a bucket of urine outside the door, and inside found outright squalor. The discovery led to the arrest of the home’s owner, 61-year-old Pensri…
Aggressive behavior by nursing home residents is on the rise, and is becoming a big problem in nursing homes and residential care facilities around the country. “Resident-on-resident aggression is substantially more common than previously thought,” said Dr. Karl Pillemer, a Cornell University gerontologist. “While they are mentally impaired, they are…
Police arrested a nursing home resident after he punched a fellow resident because he thought the man was stealing his food. According to new accounts, Ardyce Nauden was charged with aggravated battery after punching 72-year-old and wheelchair-bound Andres Cardona in the face, knocking him unconscious. Nauden allegedly stated, “He was…
The California State Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve Assembly Bill 392, which would immediately restore $1.6 million to Long-Term Care Ombudsman programs throughout the state. Much of the funding to the programs was cut last year when Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed the Ombudsman funding request. In June 2009, a nursing home…