San Francisco Nursing Home Neglect

December 27, 2024

Recognizing Elder Abuse During the Holiday Season

Whether you have already made one or more visits to a loved one in the San Francisco Bay Area during the holiday season or you have plans for an upcoming visit, it is a particularly good time of the year to be on the lookout for any signs of elder abuse or neglect if your elderly loved one is living in a nursing home, a skilled nursing facility, an assisted-living facility, or any other type of residential care facility for the elderly (RCFE) in California. The holiday season often involves multiple visits from family and adult children gathering to see their parents, which means adult children and other family members can work together to identify potential abuse or neglect risks.

Making a Plan to Focus on Your Elderly Loved One’s Safety

During the holiday season — or during any time of the year when family members gather to see a loved one in a nursing home or assisted-living facility — it is helpful to make a plan to focus on health and safety. Sporadic visits at other times of the year may be relatively quick, and those visits may involve only one person stopping by an elderly parent’s nursing home room or assisted-living facility residence. When multiple family members are together, especially adult children, they can work together to consider injury risks at the nursing home or other facility and to pay particular attention to warning signs of abuse or neglect.

January 24, 2020

Federal Nursing Home Bills Aims to Prevent Abuse

by Nursing Home Law Group

A new federal nursing home bill is designed to prevent elder abuse, and it could help patients at facilities in San Jose and throughout California. According to a recent article in Skilled Nursing News, the proposed legislation “seeks to protect individuals in nursing homes by implementing more stringent staffing protocols—including increased clinical hours and training—among other safety measures for residents.” Nursing home abuse and neglect often occurs as a result of understaffing. If a federal law were to mandate certain staffing numbers in facilities, rates of abuse and neglect could drop.

Learning More About the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents Act

The proposed law is known as the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents Act. The bill is co-sponsored by two Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut). It has support from lawmakers in both the House and Senate. In addition to requiring certain staffing levels for facilities receiving payments through Medicare and Medicaid, the bill would also make other changes to nursing home mandates. First, nursing staff members would be required to go through “heightened training” and would be subject to heightened “supervision obligations.” This requirement, in connection with the requirement for increased staff numbers, aims to prevent nursing home abuse and neglect by targeting staff at these facilities. Three registered nurses (RNs) would have to be on staff as “management personnel.”

March 11, 2015

Protecting Our Most Vulnerable: Confronting Sexual Abuse in San Francisco Bay Area Nursing Homes

by Nursing Home Law Group

When we discuss nursing home negligence, the conversation often centers on slip-and-falls, bedsores, or medication errors. These are tragic and far too common, but there is a darker, often silenced reality within the long-term care industry: sexual assault.

A harrowing case out of Greenbrae, California, recently brought this issue into the spotlight. A female resident of Kindred Nursing and Transitional Care filed a lawsuit alleging she was sexually assaulted twice within an eight-month span. The details are chilling—one incident involved an assailant dressed in medical scrubs and a surgical mask who removed the resident from her bed to commit the assault.

Perhaps more disturbing than the act itself was the facility’s response. Reports indicate that the Director of Nursing allegedly told staff there was “no need to inform the police” because the attack had occurred 12 hours prior. While the California Department of Public Health eventually launched investigations, the resident passed away at age 89 before seeing full justice in a courtroom.

May 8, 2008

Elder Neglect: Dehydration in the San Francisco Bay Area Nursing Homes

by Randall Walton

Dehydration and malnutrition remain two of the most serious and most overlooked forms of neglect in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. While these conditions may sound simple or even mild, the reality is far more dangerous. In elderly and dependent adults, dehydration and malnutrition can rapidly lead to organ failure, infection, falls, hospitalization, and death. For families in San Jose and the greater Bay Area who trust facilities to protect their loved ones, these outcomes are both devastating and preventable.

The human body depends on adequate fluids and nutrition to function. When an individual becomes dehydrated, the body begins to shut down essential processes. Common symptoms include an increased heart rate, decreased urination, dry mouth, confusion, dizziness, headaches, muscle cramps, extreme fatigue, and tingling in the hands or feet. In older adults, dehydration often presents differently than it does in younger people. Seniors may not feel thirsty, may be unable to communicate their needs, or may suffer cognitive impairment that prevents them from asking for water. This makes them uniquely vulnerable in the nursing home setting.

Malnutrition often goes hand in hand with dehydration. When residents are not receiving adequate calories, protein, or essential nutrients, their bodies lose the ability to heal, fight infection, or maintain muscle strength. Malnourished residents are at higher risk for pressure ulcers, falls, aspiration pneumonia, and immune system failure. In severe cases, malnutrition contributes directly to death.

March 31, 2008

Elder Abuse: “Never Events” – Things that Should Never Happen in a San Francisco Nursing Home

by Randall Walton

When families place a loved one in a nursing home or assisted living facility, they do so with the expectation that the facility will provide basic safety, dignity, and competent medical care. Unfortunately, that expectation is not always met. In recognition of this reality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, identified a category of catastrophic failures in healthcare that should never occur in a properly run facility.

These incidents are known as “never events.”

According to the National Quality Forum, never events are serious medical errors that are clearly identifiable, largely preventable, and result in significant harm or death. Most importantly, they signal a fundamental breakdown in patient safety systems and oversight. In other words, when a never event occurs, it is not bad luck or an unavoidable outcome. It is evidence of negligence.