Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

Nationwide, there are problems with nursing home staff failing to promptly respond to their patient's call bells. Yet again, we see this issue. Here, the nursing home staff's failure to respond had fatal results.

An eighty-two year old woman died the night before she was to check out of the Brighton Gardens of Rancho Mirage nursing home to move in with her daughter and her family. She had only been at the nursing home for seven days.

That night, the woman had difficulty breathing and rang the call bell, but it took nursing home staff members ten minutes to show up. After she collapsed and stopped breathing, the nursing home staff did not perform CPR on her. Rather, they ignored her, throwing her back in bed.

The California Department of Health cited the nursing home for neglect and issued a $10,000 fine. The victim's family has filed a complaint, charging the nursing home with neglect.

For the full article.

Marigold Rehab & HCC has been fined $5,000 for failure to supervise a resident identified as a risk for leaving the facility. The resident left the facility without staff knowledge. Staff failed to operate the resident electronic monitoring system and failed to have written policies and procedures for monitoring the system.

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

Coventry Village has been fined $25,000 for failure to reasonably monitor and recognize a resident’s declining condition, and then use appropriate interventions. The facility also failed to notify the resident’s doctor of declining health. The resident was taken to the hospital and required immediate surgery.

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

Auburn Nursing & Rehab Center has been fined $5,000 for failure to provide adequate supervision to prevent a resident from leaving the facility without staff knowledge. Police notified staff they had found the resident in a ball field about 200 yards from the facility.

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

The Orange County Register reported that a sixty-one year old California man won a $3.3 million jury award in a medical malpractice case against his primary care physician.

The victim initially saw the doctor in June 2002 after he had been urinating blood. The doctor concluded that the man had a kidney stone and instructed him to do nothing unless his symptoms resurfaced.

Only six months down the road, the victim was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After enduring multiple surgeries and several months of physical therapy, he continues to walk with a cane and has to urinate into a bag attached to his stomach.

For the full article.

South Haven Home has been fined $5,000 for failure to implement its policy to prevent a resident, who left the facility on two prior occasions, from leaving the facility without staff knowledge.

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

Sterling Pavilion has been fined $40,000 for failure to ensure that care provided to residents with a history of falls and significant injury included measures to minimize further falls. Several residents were injured from falls, including one resident who died from a head injury.

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

A nurse from the Rosewood Care Center in Edwardsville, IL has been charged with felony criminal neglect in the death of an 86-year-old nursing home resident. Last August, the nurse was alleged to have given the 86-year-old woman a lethal dose of the painkiller oxycodone.

The nurse is suspected of having given the drug four hours too soon.

For the full article.

The American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) will be sponsoring two upcoming events to address the pressing issue of nursing home abuse in our country.

The ATLA continuing legal education program entitled “The Ever-Changing Defendant: Holding the Nursing Home Industry Accountable" will be held October 4-5, 2006 in Memphis, Tennessee. To register.

The ATLA continuing legal education seminar entitled “Deconstructing a Landmark Resident-on-Resident Abuse Nursing Home Case Against Summit Care Corp" will be held October 6, 2006 in Memphis, Tennessee. To register.

Despite a jury award of $5 million, the family of a 33-year-old Michigan man who bled to death while being transferred from one hospital to another will get only $359,000 in noneconomic damages under a state cap law. The man was admitted to the hospital with a broken leg after a car accident. While his leg was splinted, he was transferred to a hospital 40 miles away. Before the man was transferred, a nurse had noted in his chart that he was “spurting blood” and a medical technician noted he was losing “copious amounts of blood.” Despite the warnings, that man was transferred in violation of Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 which requires emergency rooms to screen patients and prevent discharges and transfers of patients with serious medical conditions. In this man’s case, he went into cardiac arrest on the transfer and was later pronounced dead.

The man’s widow was awarded $5 million by a Michigan jury, however the 6th circuit reduced the award to $359,000 on appeal, due to Michigan’s cap on noneconomic damages. This is a prime example of why tort reform is contrary to notions of fairness and justice. In this case a very young man was allowed to bleed to death due to easily avoidable miscommunication and negligence of hospital staff.

The large disparity in what the jury awarded the widow and what the law allowed the widow to recover demonstrates that there are two sides to the so-called tort reform debate. While doctors often complain of frivolous lawsuits, the fact remains that many cases are screened out of the system before a jury even has a chance to consider the facts. In fact, if a case goes to jury, only one-third of plaintiffs will prevail. On the other hand, in a case like this, the award allowed by applicable state law is grossly lower than what a jury of peers believes the man’s estate is entitled to recover.

Hawthorne Inn of Clinton has been fined $60,000 and has received a notice of license revocation for failure to comply with its plan of correction submitted after a previous survey. Nursing staff failed to monitor/document changes in the conditions of two residents and failed to notify their doctors. As a result two residents were hospitalized and one resident died.

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

Sometimes the medical equipment used for procedures in hospitals may not be bought because it is the best equipment or most efficient equipment. Sometimes the equipment is purchased because of financial schemes set up between doctors and medical devicemakers, where doctors often receive kickbacks.

A special report states that hospitals are the next in line in ongoing government investigations and lawsuits regarding relations between medical devicemakers and doctors.

Continue reading "Government investigators predicted to investigate hospitals’ participation in Medicare fraud in devicemaker schemes " »

Willow Creek Rehabilitation has been fined $50,000 for failure to have a system in place to timely identify, asses and treat pressure sores and have measures in place to prevent pressure sores from developing and promote the healing of existing pressure sores. This failure resulted in a resident not receiving timely care.

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

Springfield Terrace has been fined $5,000 for failure to have a system in place to monitor water temperatures. The hot water measured between 128 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, which could scald and harm residents.

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

In a medical malpractice trial in Oregon this week, jurors will consider who is covered by the $200,000 damage cap in the state. In the case of a 45-year old man who is suing for negligence and medical malpractice as a result of back surgery last year, the defendants are both the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the OHSU Medical Group. The OHSU hospital is undoubtedly covered by the cap which applies to hospitals. The question will be whether the OHSU Medical Group is an agent of the hospital and thus, also covered by the caps.

This suit is the first to come to trial since the Oregon Court of Appeals overruled the cap in another case earlier this month.

For the full article.

A Louisiana article reported that Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center had allowed one of its doctors to perform unnecessary heart procedures, such as angiograms, angioplasty, and stent replacements on their patients. The lawsuit against the Medical Center for defrauding public health care providers was filed by a whistleblower who had formerly worked with the doctor. The Federal Government has settled the lawsuit for $3.8 million and the whistleblower will receive $760,000 of the award. The doctor is also individually facing several criminal charges and hundreds of medical malpractice lawsuits for the unnecessary heart procedures.

For the full article.

Earlier this summer, a story was posted about financial elder abuse.

The story of a 101 year-old woman who filed a lawsuit against her 74 year-old friend alleging violation of fiduciary duties. The 101 year-old woman had given her 74 year-old friend some control over her money and affairs, making her a joint holder on her bank accounts and a beneficiary in her will.

She later filed suit after discovering her friend had set up CDs for her own children and continued withdrawing funds long after she knew she no longer had power of attorney.

A Circuit Judge ruled that there was clear and convincing evidence that there were no gifts made. The 101 year-old woman will get all of her money back.

For the full article.

In response to the study released earlier this month from the Archives of Internal Medicine concerning doctors’ disclosure preferences, an article from the Seattle Times examines whether doctors fearful of lawsuits and those practicing in tort reform states have the same disclosure preferences. The answer: yes.

Doctors in Canada for example, fear lawsuits significantly less than those in the United States due to paying less for malpractice insurance, cases being heard by judges, not juries and caps on damages for pain and suffering. However, these doctors are just as reluctant to fess up to their mistakes as those in states in the United States labeled as so-called medical malpractice “crisis” states.

For the full article.