Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

A federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against HCA Inc., the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain saying that the cases in the class action need to be examined individually.

In April the hospital chain was sued in a claim it defrauded patients by directing its affiliated hospitals to staff nursing units below generally accepted levels.

The judge says those cases involve medical malpractice that should be examined on an individual basis, not in a consumer class-action.

For the full article.

A lawsuit has been filed by the widow of a Good Samaritan who attempted to rescue a woman’s purse after it had been snatched. The man chased after the thief and was halfway inside his car when the car crashed, pinning the Good Samaritan between the car and the building.

The man was immediately taken to Overland Park Regional Medical Center where he underwent surgery and was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital. While the purse thief was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, the new civil lawsuit alleges the doctors negligently treated the Good Samaritan after he came to the hospital.

The suit alleges medical malpractice in that the doctors waited too long to intervene, administered inappropriate antibiotics, and then waited too long to take him back to surgery.

For the full article.

The family of 104-year-old wealthy New York socialite and philanthropist, Brooke Astor, are entwined in a bitter battle over who should be her guardian.

Astor’s grandson is accusing his father, as Astor’s guardian, of denying Astor adequate healthcare, amongst other things.

For the full article.

Ninth Street Place has been fined $5,000 for failure to take corrective action to prevent further incidents of a resident leaving the facility without staff supervision. As the result of a follow up survey, the facility has been fined $7,500 for failure to set up a structure to protect the same resident, as noted above.

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

Harrisburg Care Center has been fined $52,500 for failure to investigate two alleged incidents of sexual assault. The facility also failed to report to the Illinois Department of Public Health the alleged incidents of sexual abuse when the facility became aware of the allegations.

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

A doctor working at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans on the day the levis broke during Hurricane Katrina is being charged with homicide in the death of four patients believed to be victims of “mercy killings.”

Autopsies performed on the four elderly patients reveal they died from a lethal cocktail, a mix of morphine and a central-nervous-system depressant, Versed. None of the four patients were receiving these drugs as part of their course of treatment.

For the full article.

Last week, a Winston-Salem jury awarded $1million to the estate of a man who suffered pressure ulcers due to neglect at Springwood Care Center. The man’s estate sued for both wrongful death and personal injury.

While the jury found the pressure ulcers did not contribute to the man’s death, the jury found the home and nursing staff was negligent in treating the man and awarded the $1million for the man’s pain and suffering.

For the full article.

Thanks to Connecticut's civil union law, which allows gay to sue for loss of consortium, a lesbian couple has sued two doctors for medical malpractice. The suit alleges the doctors of treated one of the women for ovarian cancer when she actually had cancer of the appendix. As a result, the patient underwent years of chemotherapy while the cancer spread.

The woman is suing for damages and the woman’s partner is suing for damages on her behalf for loss of consortium. This is the first suit of its kinds since Connecticut enacted its civil union law last year.

For the full article.

Firestone has renewed its efforts to recall defective tires recalled in 2000 and 2001 as the company realized many of these tires were still on the road. The action follows reports of at least five serious recent accidents tied to recalled tires, including the May 21 death of an 11-year-old boy in California.

Many of the vehicles still have spare tires that should have been recalled during the initial recall and were not.

For the full article.

Often drug companies will find creative ways to get around FDA regulations concerning drug marketing. Man times, drug companies will pay doctors to promote their drugs, including the “off label” uses.

The FDA does not allow drug manufacturers to market their drugs for unapproved uses. Therefore, drug companies will often pay doctors like Dr. Peter Gleason, a Maryland psychiatrist, to speak at industry conferences. In the case of Dr. Gleason, he has recently been charged with promoting the drug Xyrem for purposes other than those approved by the federal government.

Xyrem is a narcolepsy drug but Dr. Gleason advocated its use in treating depression and for pain relief.

For the full article.

Two nurses involved in abuse and neglect at CareMeridian assisted-living home in Oxnard, California will face criminal involuntary manslaughter charges along with the civil suit filed by the family of a 20 year old man who died at the home.

The man was admitted in January 2004 after suffering a serious surfing injury. Lying in a coma, the man required a gastrostomy or “g-tube” be inserted into his stomach to feed him. Just as his parents began to see signs of improvement, he took a turn for the worse. The feeding tube which was supposed to be changed by a specialist was wrongly changed by a nurse and inserted into the man’s abdominal cavity instead of his stomach. Over the next 12 hours the man received food water and medications into his abdominal cavity and causing inflammation and the man’s eventual death from periontitis.

The civil suit alleges lack of training of staff.

For the full article.

Last week, the Center for Justice & Democracy released a new study showing how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce provides substantial financial and strategic assistance to local front groups to influence state elections, including funding major media buys to smear local candidates. The report, “The Secret Chamber – The Inner Workings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Hijacking of an Election,” draws from newly-released papers and deposition testimony uncovered in connection with litigation surrounding the failed 2004 election bid of Deborah Senn for Washington State Attorney General.

The Chamber of Commerce advocates on behalf of businesses and often overlooks the rights and needs of individual citizens, particularly with respect to the civil justice system.

For the study.

Last week, a trial progressed in Florida between a 100 year-old woman and the 74 year-old woman to whom she entrusted her care concerning $500,000 the 100 year-old woman claims her care giver tried to steal.

Hard of hearing and nearly blind, the 100 year-old woman met her 74 year-old friend in church. When the 100 year-old woman fell and needed to be admitted into a nursing home, their friendship soured. The 74 year-old woman, who had power of attorney over the 100 year-old woman, insisted that she remain in a nursing home.

The 74 year-old then transferred part of the $500,000 into her own accounts and the accounts of her children.

For the full article.

Quality Tools, a division of the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality has developed a tool that helps nursing facilities to manage those most at risk for falls. Specifically, the tool focuses on improving nursing facilities’ fall care processes and outcomes through educational and quality improvement tools.

For more information about the tool.

The website below provides cost reports for nursing homes in Illinois detailing the operating costs of each home including salary information.

http://www.hfs.illinois.gov/costreports/

TennBarU, the TBA Elder Law Section and the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) present Elder Law Basics and Beyond.

August 18 – 20th in downtown Nashville.

To register.

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed this week against the Danville Centre for Health and Rehabilitation alleging the home failed to provide enough trained staff to properly care for an elderly woman.

For the full article.

A new study from the Institute of Medicine released Thursday found that medication errors harm 1.5 million people, kill several thousand people and cost $3.5 billion per year in the United States.

Common errors are giving many times over the recommended dose, giving the wrong medication, and under medicating patients. Systemic changes are needed in the system to curtail the ill effects of medication errors. One of the proposed changes includes an electronic prescription service, however this system is used in only 6% of the nation’s hospitals.

The report also urged the Food and Drug Administration to improve and standardize the drug information leaflets given consumer because information on drug labels is often confusing and an important cause of medication errors.

For the full article.

A Franklin County, Ohio jury today awarded $17.8 million in a medical malpractice case brought by the family of a 5 year old girl. This is the largest historical money award in the county awarded by a jury.

The $17.8 million will cover the future medical costs, education and pain and suffering of a 5-year-old whose brain was damaged before elective surgery at Children's Hospital nearly five years ago.

As a result the child cannot speak, has cerebral palsy and will use a wheelchair for life, one of her attorneys said. Doctors were preparing to remove a benign cyst from the neck of the then-4-month-old infant when something went wrong with the anesthesia on Sept. 25, 2001.

The jury found the anesthesiologist responsible for the girl’s injuries and determined he had failed to let the girl recover properly from a first attempt to administer anesthesia and didn't respond quickly to warning signs that something was wrong.

For the full article.