DO YOU SUSPECT ABUSE OR NEGLECT? Contact Us for a Free Consultation

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USA Today has analyzed nursing home rankings under Medicare criteria and found that lowest scoring nursing homes tend to stay that way, year after year. Sadly, many of these poor performing nursing homes are the only nursing facilities for miles.

According to this article, twenty percent of the country’s 15,700 nursing homes receive consistently poor ratings for the care they provide. With over 250,000 Americans living in skilled nursing facilities, that represents a huge number of vulnerable nursing home patients who are exposed to abuse or neglect every day.

“We want to see improvements, but we don’t expect a nursing home will jump to a five-star rating within a one-year time period,” said Medicare’s Thomas Hamilton.

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Nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers in California often lament the state’s weak enforcement of bad nursing homes. The California Department of Public Health, due primarily to inadequate funding, rarely provides the strong oversight of California’s 1,200 or so licensed skilled nursing facilities. As a result, bad nursing homes operate with relative impunity, and those who screw up rarely suffer the consequences.

Apparently California is not alone. In Connecticut, the director of the state’s Department of Public Health said his unit is dangerously understaffed. He has only four investigators to oversee the state’s 231 certified nursing facilities, and told the Norwich Bulletin that if he had 10 more, he would have a lot more cases.

State Sen. Edith Prague has apparently had enough. She is set to re-introduce a bill that would make it easier to hold the owners of nursing homes criminally responsible for abuse and neglect of patients in their facilities. Under Prague’s bill, the state’s DPH would be required to include a notice in nursing home applications telling owners they could be held criminally liable for patient neglect by employees, including for things such as inadequate staffing. “You can’t sue the state, but the nursing home owners who cut back on staffing I feel should be held responsible,” Prague said.

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If you considering using the services of a residential care facility for the elderly or an assisted living facility, you may be wondering how to select a good one. Unfortunately, there is no rating system like you might find in hospitals, and now nursing homes, but there are actions you can take that will help ensure you make the right choice.

The California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) have created a checklist to use when researching care facilities for the elderly. First and foremost, evaluate the most recent inspection report from the California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing (DSS). Your local DSS office will have a complete inspection file on every facility within its jurisdiction, and you have a right to review. Simply contact the office and make an appointment to go review the file. (Click here to find your local DSS office).

When reviewing the file, you want to make sure to examine:

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U.S. News and World Report, famous for its “best” lists, is out with a ranking of the country’s best nursing homes. There are approximately 16,000 individuals living in U.S. nursing homes, and approximately 3.2 million will spend time in one each year. Here at Walton Law Firm we get asked all the time to recommend nursing homes, but rarely can provide a good answer. In our experience, the best guarantor of good care is an attentive family who visits frequently.

Here is a list of the top 25 Southern California nursing homes as ranked as the U.S. News and World Report ranks as the best:

1. Rady Children’s Hospital Bernardo Center, San Diego

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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, the nursing home’s director, Hughes would “chemically restrain” the patient by giving her powerful anti-psychotic drugs to shut her up. Hughes did this to other residents in the nursing home, and three of them died.

In a report from the California Attorney General, Hughes ordered one patient drugged because she “glared” at her. Another was given high doses of an anti-psychotic drug for throwing a carton of milk. Several residents became severely malnourished, and were left in bed drooling and emaciated.

“In a couple cases, elderly people were actually held down, restrained against their will, and given excessive amounts of medicine to keep them quiet,” said AG Jerry Brown.

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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.

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A certified nursing assistant working in a San Diego nursing home is being held on charges of rape and elder abuse after being caught having sex with a nursing home resident. According to reports, an employee of the El Dorado Care Center in El Cajon walked into the room of an elderly patient and saw Felix Panem sexually assaulting the patient. Panem is being held on $450,000 bail, and faces a possible 10 year sentence if convicted.

Sexual assault in the nursing home is not common, but it is certainly not rare. Because of age and infirmity, including memory problems such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, nursing home residents can be fairly easy targets for the criminally inclined. The Walton Law Firm has has cases involving sexual assault, physical abuse, and burglary committed by employee caregivers. Sometimes it’s just a rouge employee, but there are times when the facilities fail to perform adequate background checks that would have revealed the criminal propensity of a caregiver.

Investigators told the Union Tribune that they believe that the elderly resident is Panem’s only victim, but believe that she may have been raped by him on other occasions. The El Dorado Care Center is a skilled-nursing facility on Washington Street in El Cajon, California.

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We blogged earlier about the $7.75 million dollar verdict a 71-year-old stroke victim was awarded after she proved to a civil jury that she was abused by caregivers in her nursing home. The lady’s family decided to place a hidden camera near the bed of Maria Arellano, and caught some ghastly footage of an attendant pulling the elderly woman’s hair, bending her fingers and neck, and treating her violently in the shower. Now, as expected, the defendant, Fillmore Convalescent Center, plans on appealing the verdict.

It’s attorney Thomas Beach told the Ventura County Star, “We strongly disagree with the decision and will be taking all appropriate legal steps to set aside the verdict.” Strongly disagree? Of course he disagrees; he told the jury to give her nothing.

What makes this case most interesting is that the plaintiff attorney Greg Johnson made a settlement demand of $500,000 long before the trial. He had compelling video, and a great story, and not only did the nursing home ignore his demand, they never offered him a penny.

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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 investigating all complaints made against nursing homes.

The process of filing a complaint with the DPH is fairly straightforward, and the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform have summarized it nicely:

1. Who Can File a Complaint? Any person, or even an organization, can file a complaint about nursing home neglect with the DPH. While it is usually a family member, it doesn’t have to be.

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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 or neglect.

The facts are egregious. In 2006, the family of 71-year-old Maria Arellano, a stroke victim who was also non-verbal, began to notice suspicious bruising. They complained to the nursing home administration, but it failed to look into it. The family then placed a hidden camera in Ms. Arellano’s room, which caught caregiver Monica Garcia slapping Arellano, pulling her hair, bending her fingers, and treating her violently. When the tape was revealed, Garcia was charged with criminal acts, and the family brought an elder abuse lawsuit against the nursing home.

The lawyer for Arellano, Greg Johnson, must have done an excellent job. He told the Ventura County Star that he offered to settle the case for $500,000, but was rebuffed. The nursing home, through its attorney Tom Beach, never offered a dime to resolve the case. “There was a lot of arrogance,” said Johnson.

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