Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

A July 31st trial date has been set in case involving a 57 year old woman who died as a result of understaffing and improper training of staff at Manorcare nursing home in Illinois. Levin & Perconti represents the daughter of the deceased nursing home neglect victim.

The woman’s daughter is suing the home for neglect after her 57 year old mother died after only 6 days in residence at the home. The woman was admitted to Manorcare with a breathing tube because successful radiation for laryngeal cancer left scars that made her own breathing tube too narrow. The woman was admitted to the home for reconditioning and so the staff could familiarize her with the breathing tube. The home was supposed to clean and suction the tube regularly and as needed until the resident could return to her home.

Instead, the staff irregularly medicated the woman and failed to properly and regularly clean and suction her breathing tube. The woman’s daughter complained several times that the home was understaffed and inattentive to her mother’s needs. On the sixth day of her mother’s stay, her daughter was on her way to take her mother home where she could receive the care she needed with the help of a home health nurse.

When she called the home, she was told her mother had been hospitalized. The tracheotomy tube had become obstructed by a mucus plug because it wasn’t cleaned properly. As a result, her mother died. The employees of the home have admitted they were understaffed and untrained in providing the trach care she required.

This story made local and national headlines when it first broke and the woman’s daughter testified on capitol hill during senate hearings on aging. This case is only another illustration of how understaffing and poor training of staff at Illinois nursing homes results in neglect and continues to plague the innocent elderly.

Levin & Perconti has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit in Cook County against Advocate Health Care Systems and various doctors for failure to diagnose bladder cancer in a 59 year old woman.

The failure was due to poor communication between the woman’s primary care physicians and a specialist. This poor communication resulted in the woman not having a crucial cystoscopy that would have diagnosed her cancer at a time when the cancer would have been treatable. Instead, the test was given to the woman when it was too late – the cancer had spread to her bowel, colon and eventually throughout her abdomen.

The primary care physicians misunderstood the woman’s symptoms and their significance and failed to inform the patient that failure to have a cystoscopy could be fatal. The woman’s symptoms included blood in her urine, and painful and frequent urination.

The woman’s family is suing the hospital and the doctors for wrongful death in failing to diagnose and treat bladder cancer.

Levin & Perconti has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County against nurses and doctors the University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital.

The basis of the lawsuit is that while the patient was in the hospital, suffering from injuries due to a brain hemorrhage, the hospital staff failed to monitor the pressure building up inside the patient’s brain. As a result, this pressure increased and the skull pressed the brain down into the patient’s spinal cord, resulting in a brain stem herniation. The patient is now severely brain damaged due to the hospital’s negligence.

A lawsuit will be filed later this month in Lake County against Condell Medical Center in a case involving a woman who died of heart failure, leaving 2 children aged 9 and 14. The woman visited the emergency room and was given an X-ray and released. Two hours later when the woman returned, she had fluid in the sack around her heart. The hospital now claims that the x-ray taken before her death is missing.

The patient’s family is suing the hospital for medical malpractice, spoliation of records and wrongful death claiming that the family’s ability to successfully proceed with the lawsuit is substantially impaired because of the missing X-ray.

Illinois has a law called the X-ray retention act that mandates hospitals retain all X-ray records for 5 years after the records are taken. To view the law: 210 ILCS 90/1, click here.

The law firm of Levin & Perconti is representing the family.

Joining Chicago’s anti-poverty groups and citizens, Bread for the City, a Washington D.C. charitable organization, along with 11 D.C. citizens, has filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia to stop the city’s most vulnerable Medicaid recipients from receiving benefits.

The new Medicaid law, effective tomorrow, July 1, 2006, will require proof of citizenship from those eligible for Medicaid benefits in the form of a birth certificate or passport. This requirement puts the city’s most helpless, nursing home residents and the physically and mentally disabled, at risk for losing their benefits if they can’t find the necessary documentation.

While the law is part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and intended to preclude non-U.S. citizens from falsely identifying themselves as such on Medicaid applications, the effects of the law’s enactment are far reaching. Those unable to gather the necessary documentation in time and those who have misplaced these identification items will also be cut off from Medicaid support by the new law.

For the full article.

A Marshall County woman filed a lawsuit on behalf of her deceased mother against Cameron Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in West Virginia. The suit alleges that the home failed to provide the proper care to prevent, assess, treat and manage pain when her mother developed pressure sores. The facilities were unequipped to deal with her mother’s condition and failed to provide adequate staffing.

The lawsuit requests compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering of the nursing home neglect victim and sorrow and mental anguish for her family members.

Earlier this month, Levin & Perconti settled a lawsuit for $1.25 million when a school bus driver ran over a 50 year old woman crossing the street in a cross walk at Argyle and Kenmore in Chicago. The bus driver from Alltown Bus Service, Inc. pled guilty in traffic court to failure to exercise due care and striking a pedestrian.

As the woman began crossing the street, in the crosswalk, the bus knocked her down and rolled over her. She suffered multiple pelvic fractures, rib fractures and spine fractures and will need a hip replacement due to arthritis in one of the hip fractures.

Last October, Levin & Perconti settled a nursing home abuse and neglect case for $3 million, a record verdict for nursing home cases in Illinois. A 65 year old woman was the victim of nursing home abuse and neglect at Renaissance Hillside in Hillside, IL. The woman developed 4 large pressure sore affecting her back, foot, heel and ankle when the employees of the home failed to monitor, assess and treat her bed sores. Bed sores like these develop when blood supply to the skin is cut off for long periods by pressure and movement.

The woman was admitted to the home for rehabilitation after a stroke. She trusted the home to provide the things she could not give herself after the stroke: nutrition, hydration and movement needed to prevent the development of pressure sores. The chronic understaffing and lack of care subsequently led to the development of pressure sores on parts of her body unaffected by the stroke she suffered and the reason for admittance to the home.

In depositions, the employees of the home admitted they were understaffed and unable to properly turn and reposition the woman to prevent the development of sores. Further, nurses at the home admitted to administering medicine to the woman that was not prescribed by a doctor.

The judge granted leave to plead a willful and wanton count and include a prayer punitive damages. However, no punitive damages were paid towards the settlement.

To see the press release.

John Bouman, a lawyer at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, filed a class action lawsuit in Federal District Court in Chicago on Wednesday on behalf of low income citizens and anti- poverty groups alleging the new Medicaid citizenship requirements are unconstitutional.

The new law requires proof of citizenship in the form of a birth certificate or passport in order to be eligible to receive Medicaid benefits. The group alleges this leaves many citizens who are in nursing homes or have mental and physical disabilities, and victims of natural disasters most at risk for denial of coverage even if they are legitimate citizens of the United States.

The theory behind the suit is that the law unconstitutionally violates the Fifth Amendment's due-process guarantee by arbitrarily requiring documents and imposing deadlines.

For the full article.

Another related article.

Healthratings.org is a joint venture between Consumer Reports Web Watch and the Health Improvement Institute created for consumers to know which health information websites are the most reliable and credible.

The service is free and it ranks sites like WebMD, Yahoo! Health and MayoClinic.com

To try the service, click here.

After the Diagnosis -- How to Look Out for Yourself or a Loved One, by Donna L. Pikula
Patients need to do their homework. "They also need to learn to listen to their instinct -- that little voice inside them that tells them whether something seems right or not."

To purchase.

YOU: The Smart Patient : An Insider's Handbook for Getting the Best Treatment , by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz
A handbook to help everyone to get the best health care possible -- by making everyone into their own medical detective.

To purchase.

Helia Healthcare of Energy was fined $5,000 for failure to provide adequate supervision of a resident who left the facility without staff knowledge. The resident was later found by police, lying face down and asleep in the grass outside a house about 100 yards from the facility. The temperature was 55-degrees when the resident was found wearing a short-sleeved top, pants, and shoes with no socks.

The Illinois Department of Health produces quarterly reports on nursing home violators.

Trust your instincts. This is the message being echoed by consumer health advocates nationwide as thousands of citizens die each year from medical errors. If you suspect you have been misdiagnoses or something is “not right,” speak up, or it may be too late by the time your physician realizes your condition has worsened.

To ensure you receive the appropriate medical care make sure you have a friend or family member at your bedside 24/7 to keep track of things and get what you need. These friends and family members can also serve to aid you after you determine you have been a victim of medical malpractice.

Other suggestions are to log all treatment, names of caregivers, and be assertive about pain relief. If you're having surgery, have the physician sign the site beforehand to be sure they work on the right area. Ask lots of questions at the doctor’s office and prepare questions ahead of time to address all the concerns you may have about your condition and the course of treatment prescribed.

With nursing shortages and overworked employees in hospitals nationwide, an additional responsibility has fallen on the consumer to question the treatments and care provided.

For the full article.

Last week, Nurses throughout the nation filed a class action lawsuit against hospitals in Chicago, Memphis, San Antonio and Albany alleging violations of anti-trust laws.

The nurses allege the hospitals conspired to set a wage ceiling for nurses by exchanging salary information with each other and colluding not to raise wages past a certain point. Low wages are to blame for the shortage of nurses nationwide as nurses are flocking to more lucrative industries with better working conditions.

The suit alleges that as a result of the collusion nurses were underpaid by the following amounts annually in each respective city:

Memphis $14,000
Albany $6,200
Chicago $5,400
San Antonio $1,300

For the full article.

In Senate hearings last week, legislators considered a senate bill that would test different proposals to reduce medical malpractice insurance costs. One of the proposals, the Health Court Model, meets strong opposition from the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) and the American Bar Association (ABA) because the model denies those injured by a hospital’s negligence their access to the court system, constitutional due process rights and right to a jury trial.

Among many concerns, the Health Court model would be an administrative nightmare – a bureaucratic process run by political appointees charged with the impossible task of formulating a uniform system of compensation for victims of medical malpractice. Given the uniqueness of each individual citizen, their potential injuries from malpractice and their personal and family lives, this system would under compensate many victims and their loved ones who are victims of irreparable harm due to a hospital’s negligence.

In addition, those appointed to sit on health courts would not be unbiased jurors or judges, but rather self interested politically appointed individuals susceptible to influence by lobbying from special interest groups including insurance companies and health industry representatives – those groups who stand to benefit the most from the proposed reform.

The Health Court Model is also strongly opposed by former victims of medical malpractice and consumer groups, who have both issued strong statements in opposition of the model which can be found here:

Medical Malpractice Victims Letter

Consumer Groups Letter

In addition, the Center for Justice and Democracy has issued a working paper entitled “Why Health Courts are Unconstitutional,” which can be accessed here.

To view the press release.

Last month, the AARP Mississippi and the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office kicked off the Friendly Nursing Home Visitors Program. The program recruits and trains AARP members to visit nursing homes to check up on the quality of care and cleanliness of the facilities. This is a great way for citizens to become involved with reporting instances of nursing home abuse and neglect.

To view the press release.

Stearns Nursing & Rehab Center was fined $5,000 for failure to provide adequate supervision of a resident who is considered at risk for trying to leave the facility. The resident was found laying in a grassy ditch next to a wheelchair about 110 feet from the rear service door of the facility about 2:20 a.m. No staff at the facility heard the door or was aware that the resident had left.

The Illinois Department of Health produces quarterly reports on nursing home violators.