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CANHR-300x283Is there any right more fundamental than the freedom to leave a place where you do not wish to stay? For nursing home residents in California, this right is often disregarded—sometimes in direct violation of the law. Fortunately, the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) has recently updated its guide for long-term care residents who are being held against their will. This guide outlines the legal protections available and provides practical steps to challenge illegal restrictions on a resident’s right to leave.

The Right to Move Freely

Imagine you live independently in an apartment, making your own choices and living life on your own terms. One day, your landlord locks you inside, installs alarms on your doors and windows, and tells you that you’re not allowed to leave. He insists that, for your own safety, you must remain inside indefinitely. When you call the police for help, they tell you that your situation is a “civil matter” and that you need a court order to be able to leave.

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At Southern California Nursing Home Law Group, we have years of experience handling a wide range of nursing home and assisted living neglect cases. We have seen the devastating effects that negligence can have on some of the most vulnerable members of society—those entrusted to nursing homes for care and safety.

While nursing home neglect can take many forms, there are five specific types of cases that we most commonly encounter. These include bed sore cases, falls with injuries, failure to take action after an obvious change in health condition, wandering away from the facility, and physical assault. Below is a breakdown of each type of case and the troubling signs associated with nursing home neglect.

  1. Bed Sore Cases
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Hospice is everywhere. California has over 1,200 hospice providers, a roughly 10-fold increase in the last decade. Why the growth? Because hospice can be a very profitable business, and it has very little government oversight.

At Southern California Nursing Home Law Group, we frequently hear that same story: Mom or dad has some health event and skilled nursing, or assisted living is recommended. At the time of admission, an employee of the facility asks (out of the blue), “have you considered putting mom/dad on hospice?”

“Hospice?” a family member responds, “but mom/dad is not dying.”

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Seniors residing in Riverside County nursing homes can sustain injuries in a wide range of circumstances, and in many of those cases, the facility may be liable. In some situations, elder abuse or neglect may be the cause of a resident’s injury, while other instances of harm might result from the facility’s negligence in maintaining safety protocols. Abuse or neglect in a nursing home can take many different forms, from acts of intentional physical or psychological abuse to passive neglect that can result in injuries like bed sores. It is important to know that the use of physical restraints can constitute unlawful abuse, and it may be possible to hold the facility accountable. Our Riverside County nursing home abuse attorneys can tell you more about physical restraints, and we can discuss your case with you today.

Knowing the Law on Physical Restraints

The use of restraints among nursing home residents has been a concern for elder safety advocates for decades, and the federal Nursing Home Reform Act was intended in part to “crystallize a growing consensus against the use of restraints throughout all sectors of nursing home service delivery,” and it ultimately “led to a complete change in how restraint use is viewed,” according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). That law clarified “the right to be free from . . . any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the resident’s medical symptoms.”

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Summertime brings even hotter temperatures to Southern California than the Los Angeles County region experiences in other parts of the year, and seniors in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities can suffer harm if these facilities do not take additional precautions. Moreover, the summer months do not have any reduced likelihood of common nursing home abuse and neglect injuries that are unrelated to higher temperatures, and it is important to be on the lookout for those harms, as well. As recent research reported in Science News highlights, rising temperatures can also make people more aggressive, which might result in shorter fuses for nursing home employees who are providing care for residents and patients. Indeed, humans have difficulty “coping with extreme heat,” and during heat waves, in particular, employees could be more likely to behave aggressively.

What do you need to know if you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home or assisted-living facility in Southern California? Our Los Angeles County nursing home neglect lawyers have some key things to keep in mind.

Hot Temperatures Can Result in Distinct Injuries Due to Neglect

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“Cost-cutting is to be expected in any business, but nursing homes are particularly vulnerable. Staffing often represents the largest operating cost on a nursing home’s ledger. So, when firms buy a home, they cut staff. However, this business model has a fatal flaw. “Nurse availability,” Gupta and his colleagues wrote, “is the most important determinant of quality of care.”

“The data revealed a troubling trend: when private-equity firms acquired nursing homes, deaths among residents increased by an average of ten per cent.”

Read this compelling article from the New Yorker.

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If you are considering the possibility of filing a nursing home abuse or neglect claim in Orange County, or if you are wondering whether you have a valid nursing home abuse or neglect claim, it is important to learn more about how these claims work. A recent Forbes article provided information about the key elements of a nursing home abuse claim regardless of where you are in the country. Still, it is also important to understand how California law works specifically. The following is a general guide to nursing home abuse and neglect claims in Orange County and throughout California.

Understand What Constitutes Nursing Home Abuse, Neglect, and Negligence

The terms nursing home “abuse” and “neglect” are often used interchangeably, and you will also often see references to “nursing home negligence.” Generally speaking, nursing home negligence claims can include claims of abuse and neglect, and they usually name a specific nursing home or group of facilities (although sometimes additional parties may be named, such as certain staff members), and they allege that the nursing home’s negligence resulted in a resident’s injuries. More specifically, nursing home abuse claims tend to involve specific allegations of known types of nursing home abuse, and they may name the nursing home in addition to a specific staff member who perpetrated the abuse. At the same time, you may see these terms used interchangeably in various circumstances.

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As a law firm who specializes in the abuse and neglect of seniors, it’s important to stay informed about cases involving elder abuse. Unfortunately, these cases occur far too often, and can take many forms, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Neglect, in particular, is a type of elder abuse that can be difficult to detect, but can have devastating consequences.

Recently, a registered nurse who worked at a Riverside assisted living facility was charged with abuse by neglect of a 69-year-old woman who died after she developed gangrene. Emily Jones, 40, of Riverside, has pleaded not guilty to elder abuse that caused great bodily injury and remains free on $50,000 bail.

According to prosecutors, Jones was a case manager for a resident at Brookdale Senior Living in 2017 when she failed to properly assess an ulcer on the woman’s right heel. As a result, a Plan of Care was never developed, and the ulcer worsened into a wound that required the resident to undergo emergency surgery to her right foot, which had become septic and gangrenous. Jones also failed to notify a doctor and the woman’s family that her health was declining as a result of the lack of care, and she eventually died.

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When families in Los Angeles County or elsewhere in Southern California are seeking information about nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities in the state, they often turn to the CMS star rating system and to publicly available information about safety violations. Yet according to a recent report in The New York Times, some of the worst offenses at nursing homes across the country might not be reported to the public. Why are serious nursing home abuse and neglect injuries hidden? The report suggests that a “secretive appeals process” prevents the public from getting the full picture. Our Los Angeles County nursing home abuse attorneys can tell you more. 

Serious Injuries are Not Factored Into the Star Rating System

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes information about nursing homes through its star rating system, which is supposed to provide the public with information about recent safety violations at nursing homes and harms suffered by elderly residents. Yet the recent report, which stems from a New York Times investigation, indicates that “at least 2,700 . . . dangerous incidents were not factored into the rating system.”

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CANHRThe California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) is a statewide nonprofit that has been dedicated to improving the choices, care and quality of life for California’s nursing home residents and families.

On Jul 21, 2021 at 12:00 pm, CANHR will be holding an online town hall to discuss nursing home visitation rights in the Covid era. The goal of the town hall is to provide information to participants about the current state of the statewide visitation rules, and explain how advocacy can be used to gain more visitation access. There will also be a Q&A.

The town hall speakers will be CANHR staff attorneys Tony Chicotel and Mike Dark and Essential Caregivers Coalition co-founders Maitely Weismann and Melody Taylor Stark.

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