Articles Posted in Nursing Negligence

by

blalock_t593.JPGA patient at the San Diego Health Center nursing home wandered away from the nursing facility on Wednesday and police have been unable to locate her. Verna Blalock, 76, who suffers from dementia was last seen at the facility located on Meadowlark Drive near Starling Drive. San Diego Health Center is one of San Diego County’s largest nursing homes, with over 300 beds, and includes a secured section for people with memory impairment like Ms. Blalock.

Ms. Blalock is described as 5 feet 4 inches in height and weighs approximately 135 pounds. She was wearing a pink and white striped shirt at the time of her elopement, which the nursing home says was the first time she has wandered away from the facility. It is currently unknown how she was able to escape from the building.

Anyone with any information about her whereabouts is asked to call San Diego Police at 619 531-2000, or the nursing facility at (858) 277-6460.

Continue reading

by

Bed%20Handles.jpg

Many elderly people use them in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and the product in their own homes. They are “bed handles,” manufactured and sold by a company called Bed Handles, Inc, a bedside rail of sorts created to allow users easier ingress and egress from bed. Now, Public Citizen, the non-partisan consumer advocacy group, is announcing that the bed rails are dangerous to consumers.

“Contrary to the manufacturer’s claim that the Bedside Assistant bed handles make any bed a safer bed, data previously provided to the FDA demonstrate that these devices can turn a bed into a death trap for patients who are physically weak or have physical or mental impairments,” said Dr. Michael Carome, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

The bed handles, which look similar to bed rails, can trap elderly or frail individuals, and can even cause strangulation or asphyxiation. According to Public Citizen, a review of public records has revealed that four people have been killed using the device since 1999 after the handles slipped out of place, creating a gap where the user can slide into.

Last week, Public Citizen has submitted a petition to the US Food and Drug Administration asking the agency to order a recall of the bedside device, and to issue a ban of all further sales. [Click Here to Read the Petition .pdf]
Click here to read the entire Public Citizen press release.

Continue reading

by

The County of San Diego has agreed to pay $2 million to the family of Alton Stovall Sr., who died in the county-run skilled nursing facility Edgemoor Hospital. The payment was the result of a lawsuit brought against the facility for the neglect of Stovall, who died under very suspicious circumstances (to say the least).

According to news accounts, in the early hours of May 30, 2010 the 50-year-old Stovall, who had a preexisting leg wound, fell out of his bed and on to the floor. His leg began to bleed profusely while on the floor, but he could not reach his call light. His roommates were alerted by his fall, and began using their own call lights to summon help. The nurses on duty did not respond. A half-hour later, a nursing assistant entered Stovall’s room and found him on the floor in a pool of blood and with labored and erratic breathing.

Even after being discovered, Stovall did not receive appropriate care. It was nearly 15 minutes later that the nursing assistant called a supervisor, who, after assessing the situation, told the nursing home staff to call 911. When medics arrived an hour-and-a-half after Stovall’s fall from bed, it was too late. He died minutes before they arrived.

The Stovall family hired attorney William Berman to investigate and prosecute a civil lawsuit against the County of San Diego for Stovall’s death. Berman’s investigation revealed a cover-up at the facility, which no doubt contributed heavily to the County’s decision to pay such a large settlement.

Continue reading

by

View Larger Map

The Goldstar Rehabilitation and Nursing Center was issued an AA citation by the California Department of Public Health after investigators concluded that substandard care led to the choking death of one of its residents. According to reports, the 60-year-old resident, who was on a doctor-ordered soft diet, died after choking on solid food during dinner. The man choked for 10 -15 minutes before passing out. Nursing staff was unable to revive him.

The Department of Public Health has the statutory authority to levy fines against nursing facilities for acts of abuse, neglect, or otherwise substandard care. State citations imposed are categorized as Class B, A or AA, depending on the severity of the wrongdoing. The fines range from $100 to $1,000 for Class B up to $100,000 for Class AA. The citation class and amount of the fine depend upon the significance and severity of the established violation.

Continue reading

by

The California Department of Public Health has levied its harshest fine against a nursing home after a resident fell from a mechanical lift. According to reports, the lift was being to transfer a 60-year-old patient from her wheelchair and into her bed. As nursing assistants were transferring the woman, the sling holding the woman broke, causing the woman to fall hard to the ground. She struck her head on a nearby door, causing a severe brain injury, and ultimately causing her death four days later.

Lift.jpg An investigation by the Department of Public Health revealed that the nursing home, the Eskaton Care Center, failed to properly maintain the lift. The lift, which law required be checked monthly, had not been checked for five years. The DPH report stated that the sling appeared worn and had “what appeared to be bleached out blood stains at the center.”

The nursing home can appeal the fine (and the AA citation it received), but it’s not clear if it will. “We’re mortified,” Trevor Hammond, the nursing home’s chief operating officer, told the Modesto Bee. “We had a tragedy when a piece of equipment failed. It was a catastrophe.”

Continue reading

by

In an ongoing investigation, journalists Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein of ProPublica have a startling article out that says that more than 3,500 registered nurses with “clean” nursing licenses from the State of California have been punished for misconduct in other states. According to the article, approximately 2,000 of these nurses will now face discipline in California.

The article states that California officials won’t disclose the names of nurses who were discovered to have disciplinary records until charges are filed, but will be filing emergency petitions with the board for nurses who are viewed as a threat to public safety.

Weber and Ornstein easily uncovered cases involving current California nurses. Here’s a sampling:

Continue reading

by

A Los Angeles area nursing home received the state’s most severe penalty (short of losing its license) yesterday when it received a $100,000 fine for neglectful care that resulted in the death of a resident. The nursing facility also received an AA citation.

The case involved the misplacement of a feeding tube, which is a type of case the Walton Law Firm has handled on several prior occasions. According to reports, the 84-year-old resident was admitted to the nursing home in early 2008 to rehabilitate a hip fracture. He was noted as having no problems chewing or swallowing. Because of a weight loss, his physician ordered nasogastric tube feedings.

When staff at the nursing home inserted the tube through the man’s nose, it placed it in the man’s lung, not his stomach. When feedings began, the lungs filled with feeding material, and the man became sickened immediately. Three days later he was dead from aspiration pneumonia.

Continue reading

by

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 against “what are probably thousands” of health care providers. The revelations apparently surprised federal health officials, who just last month proclaimed that “no data is missing.”

For almost twenty years the federal government has kept a database of disciplinary actions against doctors and dentist, and in 1999 individual state boards were required to include in the database reports on all other healthcare professional, including nurses, whose licenses were restricted or revoked. In California, however, not all penalized caregivers were included in the federal database. For example, California has formally disciplined 84 psychiatric technicians over the last two years, yet the federal database does not contain a single report of discipline against a psychiatric technician in the State of California.

The dangers of an incomplete database are obvious, as Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe of the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group observed, prospective employers of health care professions could be given “a false sense of security that somebody who may be really dangerous isn’t, because their name isn’t there.”

Continue reading

by

According to new research from Brown University, elderly Hispanics are more likely to live in inferior nursing homes than their white counterparts.

In an article out in the January 10 edition of Health Affairs, a team of researchers takes the first comprehensive look at the types of nursing facilities Hispanic elderly live in, and how the care at those homes compares to homes that house a primarily white patient population. According to the study, the disparity is sharp.

“The most shocking finding is the pervasiveness of disparities in nursing home care that are primarily white, compared to nursing homes that are a mix of whites and Hispanic residences,” said Mary Fennell, professor of sociology and community health at Brown.

Continue reading

by

In their ongoing investigation into California nursing, Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein of ProPublica are out with an article on temporary nursing agencies being a haven for unfit nurses. Temp nursing agencies are used frequently by local hospitals and nursing homes to fill nursing positions that have been vacated for some reason; usually for day or two, but sometimes open-ended.

In its investigation, ProPublica found numerous instances in which the agencies, desperate to find certified nurses, failed to perform background checks or ignored warnings from hospitals about weak nurses in order to fill nursing orders. It is a profitable undertaking; the temporary nursing industry is a $4 billion industry.

Some of the other ProPublica findings were startling:

Continue reading
Justia Lawyer Rating
Super Lawyers
BBB Rating A+
Avvo Rating 10.0
Elder Justice Advocates
Consumer Attorneys California
AV Preeminent badge
Contact Information
North County Office
950 Boardwalk
#304
San Marcos, CA 92078
Toll Free: 866.607.1325 Local: 760.571.5500 Fax: 760.571.5501
San Diego Office
2169 1st Ave
San Diego, CA 92101
Toll Free: 866.607.1325

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2026, Walton Law Firm
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design