Articles Posted in Elder Care

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file3451272140532If you live in a nursing home, do you have the same rights as a tenant who rents a home from a landlord? According to a recent report from NPR, numerous nursing home residents who live the facility for a temporary inpatient hospital visit return to the nursing home only to learn that they have been evicted. As the article makes clear, this pattern results each year in thousands of nursing home residents finding themselves without a place to live, and that often leads to less-than-ideal situations that can involve elder abuse. Currently, federal law protects nursing home residents from these kinds of evictions, but as the article underscores, “those rules are rarely enforced by the states.” As such, California nursing home residents have decided to file claims against the state of California.

Plaintiffs File Claims Over Nursing Home Evictions

According to the NPR report, when nursing home residents cannot return to their rooms at the nursing facility, they are left with very expensive hospital bills and often the inability to receive the specific kind of care provided in a nursing home. For instance, one plaintiff who was evicted from his nursing home is currently living in his hospital room at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento. At the end of May 2015, his nursing home sent him to the hospital to receive treatment for pneumonia. However, once the pneumonia had been treated, the nursing home would not readmit him. As such, he has been living at the hospital for about 260 days now. The financial costs are very high: Medicaid is paying “about 2.5 times what his nursing home cost.”

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handsHow Do We Define Nursing Home Abuse in San Diego?

When we are trying to learn what constitutes nursing home abuse or elder neglect, where do we turn for information? One of the primary sources for information on elder abuse is the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), which is directed by the U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA). The NCEA provides important statistics about elder abuse and neglect across the country, as well as fact sheets that can help us to distinguish among different forms of abuse and to determine whether our elderly loved have been subject to some form of nursing home neglect. In Southern California, we are also fortunate to have the resources provided by the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR). Indeed, CANHR helps to sponsor bills aimed at preventing nursing home abuse in our state.

Are these resources sufficient to raise awareness among the greater public about the prevalence of nursing home abuse and neglect in California and across the country? According to a recent article in Long-Term Living, there is a new joint effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control to “publish national definitions for various aspects of elder abuse.

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file000356994816For those of us with elderly loved ones who are currently living in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities, the threat of injuries caused by nursing home abuse is all too real. But what leads staff members at these facilities to perpetrate acts of elder abuse and neglect? Often, as we have noted in previous posts, understaffing at nursing homes frequently results in patients not receiving proper levels of care. But when we think about physical elder abuse, it is more difficult for most San Diego residents to consider explanations.

The possibility of nursing home abuse is abhorrent to us, but it can be difficult to understand why, exactly, it happens. According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, one emergency room physician decided to look more closely into acts and events that prompt elder abuse.

Exploring Causes of Elder Abuse

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ttronslien-9913It can be difficult for California residents who do not have specific ties to elder advocacy groups to learn more about confronting nursing home abuse and neglect in our communities. Yet one city in California has taken steps to make materials about elder abuse awareness and prevention more accessible to members of the community who do not necessarily have specific knowledge about law enforcement or legal advocacy. According to a recent article in the Pleasant Hill Patch, the Contra Costa County Public Law Library is open to the public, providing “resources to help recognize and report elder abuse.”

Library with a “Special Interest in Serving Seniors”

The Contra Costa County Public Law Library has branches in a number of cities in northern California, including Martinez, Richmond, and Pittsburg. Its emphasis on providing “information and resources for recognizing and reporting elder abuse” is an aim that could easily be taken up in Southern California as well, encouraging more San Diego residents to get the information they need to help put a stop to nursing home abuse. As the article articulates, the Contra Costa County library has a “special interest in serving seniors,” and as a result it targets senior citizens in California in its outreach activities.

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file2811310649672According to a recent article from U.S. News & World Report, many nursing homes in California and across the country are working hard to eradicate elder abuse and neglect, but there is still more work to be done. As the article explains, “the next generation of nursing homes is working to shed old stereotypes.” But do cases of nursing home abuse persist?

Changing the Face of Nursing Homes in California

How do most of us imagine nursing facilities when we have not visited loved ones who are residents? The article in U.S. News & World Report notes that, “for many, the image of nursing homes is one of sad, sterile institutions where elderly people are left isolated by family members who stop caring.” Generally speaking, this image of nursing homes is not accurate. We cannot necessarily tell whether a facility is taking good care of its residents—and taking important steps to prevent elder abuse and neglect—just by looking at it. As we have noted in previous posts, numerous nursing homes that have been fined for nursing home abuse or neglect have posh interiors and carry higher price tags than safer facilities.

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handsAccording to a recent article from NBC Los Angeles, two staff members at a caregiver facility in Rancho Cucamonga were accused of elder abuse in the cases of two residents, and investigators indicate that “there may be more victims.” When we think of caregivers and elder abuse, we typically think of scenarios that occur outside nursing home settings. However, it is important to remember that employees of nursing facilities are responsible for providing proper care to seniors. In the recent case, authorities made clear that the victims themselves were “unable to communicate,” yet police obtained evidence to support allegations of dependent adult abuse.

What else do you need to know about caregiver abuse? According to a publication from the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), caregiver abuse is commonly a crime that occurs within families. By taking a close look at the publication, we can address some of the factors that may play a role in situations of caregiver abuse within and outside a senior’s home.

Caregiver Stress and its Relation to Elder Abuse

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file1251238100316Cases of nursing home abuse and neglect often go unreported. Even when seniors report incidents of elder abuse, there is no promise that a nursing or assisted-living facility will be held accountable. Given that nursing home abuse continues to plague elderly residents of Southern California, where can we turn to seek clearer answers about the causes of abuse and neglect? According to a report from NBC News, interviewing certified nurse aides might help to give us some insight into the reasons that nursing home neglect continues to result in serious injuries to some of the most vulnerable Californians.

Taking Questions About Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect “Straight to the Source”

How can we find out more about the reasons that elder abuse persists in facilities throughout the state of California? One advocate, Carolyn Pickering, has decided to go “straight to the source,” and she is “asking certified nurse aides what they think the problems are.” As Pickering explained, there is a close relationship between happy and healthy employees and happy and healthy patients. You cannot have one without the other, she intimates. Given the link between employee safety and patient safety, Pickering believes that certified nurse aides and other healthcare professionals employed by nursing homes can help to shed light on the issues that result in elder neglect.

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handsIf California nursing home employees go on strike, who will provide care for patients residing in the facilities? Should families of those patients have concerns about nursing home neglect? According to an article in the Marin Independent Journal, sixty nursing home workers went on strike last month in San Rafael following a string of nursing facility violations from government regulators. The strike was aimed at forcing the nursing facility to cease its understaffing practices and to encourage a work environment in which providing a threshold level of care for patients is among the most important logistics of running the facility. Even if such a strike is intended to improve conditions, who cares for patients while employees are on strike?

Understaffing and High Turnover Limits Quality of Care

The recent strike occurred at San Rafael Healthcare and Wellness Center, which is owned by Brius Healthcare Services. With more than 80 facilities in California, Brius is the largest nursing home chain in our state. For the last 18 months, employees of the nursing home have been working without having a contract. Why are employees working without a contract? About a year and a half ago, those workers rejected the terms of a union-negotiated contracted because it did not do enough to deal with the serious understaffing problem at the facility.

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file000356994816When older adults continue to live at home with help from a caregiver, elder neglect can become a serious issue. Although some caregivers have medical training and should be expected to care for the elderly in a manner that emphasizes safety, some caregivers are not properly trained and can be implicated in situations of elder abuse and neglect. These situations can become even worse when an older adult needs medical treatment and cannot rely on a caregiver for transport to a hospital or a physician’s office. That is where a new transportation service for the elderly comes in, according to a recent article from the California Health Report.

Mobility is a Significant Issue for the Elderly

Mobility is a significant issue for elderly California residents. Whether an older adult needs transportation to a medical appointment or simply to the grocery store to buy food, a new service can help. Recognizing that elderly Californians often have difficulty getting where they need to—or would like to—go, Eric Wong developed Lift Hero. Lift Hero t is a service that looks a lot like Uber or Lyft, but it is designed specifically for seniors who do not have other modes of transportation.

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According to a recent article from Kaiser Health News, until recently, a California law permitted nursing homes to make decisions—include about end-of-life care—for nursing home residents who have been declared incompetent. However, a state court recently held that the law, which was enacted more than twenty years ago, is unconstitutional.7750519890_1720d30f09

Nursing Homes Cannot Violate Patients’ Rights

The law remained in effect until Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio M. Grillo ruled that the law is unconstitutional in a decision that came down at the end of last month. As the judge explained, “the law violates patients’ due process rights because it doesn’t require nursing homes to notify patients they have been deemed incapacitated or to give them the chance to object.” While Grillo indicated that he knows the decision “is likely to cause problems” for regular nursing home operations, it’s more important to put nursing home patients’ rights above practical logistics.

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