Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

A troubling news story from the San Mateo Daily Journal discusses another example of financial elder abuse.

A bank teller in Redwood City is charged with felony fiscal elder abuse after she stole more $40,000 from her own aunt. While working as a teller, Arcelia Barajas Aguilar had close access to the funds of the bank customers. She was able to transfer money from one customer’s account to another. Early last month, Aguilar apparently transferred $40,000 from her aunt’s account into her own personal account.

Aguilar apparently used the money to pay down her credit card debt. Fortunately, the fraud was discovered during a bank audit. Aguilar was arrested and is now on bail. It is unclear how much money remains of the total that she stole. The judge warned the Aguilar’s sentence could ultimately be affected by the amount of restitution she is able to make—how much money she can pay back.

This story raises unique questions about the ultimate effectiveness of attempts to curb elder financial abuse. Our Chicago elder abuse attorneys at Levin & Perconti have long been advocates of taking steps to limit the chance for vulnerable seniors to have their finances exploited. This year the Illinois Legislature passed a bill which will attempt to help stop the problem by educating those in a position to notice fraudulent actions with senior finances—bank tellers. Of course, abuses like the one committed by Aguilar would probably not have been stopped by Illinois’ attempted remedy. There is little training that can be done to raise awareness of the problem if the people being trained are the very ones willing to commit fraud to steal cash from seniors.

This recent abuse is only more reason for everyone, no matter how often you interact with senior family and friends, to remain constantly vigilant to the potential of exploitation. What makes this a particularly complex problem is that the abuse very often occurs at the hands of family members themselves, as in the Aguilar case. It is hard enough for many elderly citizens to recognize when they are being taken advantage of by strangers, let alone family members who they are likely to trust even more.

As frequently reported on this blog, elderly residents across the country now have more options when they reach a point in their lives when they need additional assistance. Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti continue to watch as nursing homes provide inadequate care to vulnerable residents in their facilities, so it is no surprise than many seniors wish to avoid these negligent homes for as long as possible.

One alternative option is participation in what are becoming known as "elderly villages.” As discussed today in a Columbus Dispatch article, there are currently around 50 villages in the country, with nearly 100 more in various stages of being organized. These villages are buddy-style communities that allow seniors the chance to stay in their homes but still receive low-cost nursing visits, home maintenance, and other help that is needed.

The group is comparatively low-cost, with members paying $400 a year to cover employment costs of two staff members and other expenses. Collectively, members are able to negotiate discounts with home-care aides, physical therapists, and other medical providers.

Besides that basic care, the village also acts as a support community, helping each other when necessary. Monthly events are held which helps educate seniors, for example, on avoiding financial scams—a growing problem in the community.

For many elderly residents who are in need of additional help as they age, the benefits of the village are clear. Maintaining their independence is an important consideration for many seinors. As one member of an elder village explained, “I don’t want to have to move to a retirement community and I don’t want to move in with my children.”

The popularity of these alternative care communities will continue to grow. If traditional nursing home providers keep allowing inadequate and abusive elder care at their group homes, than the benefits of the alternatives will become even more obvious. As the director of one elder village explained, “It’s a revolution.”

Thirty years ago, when a senior needed extra medical care beyond that which he or she could do themselves, they virtually had no other choice but to move into a nursing home. Today things are much different. The Rockford Register Star recently discussed the change and the effect it has had on nursing home businesses in the Chicago area. Assisted living facilities, home care groups, and retirement centers now abound, allowing seniors increasing freedom to choose the type of aide that best matches their needs. The trend is considered a positive development by all who care about allowing seniors the chance to preserve their freedom and live happy, fulfilling, independent lives.

However, the expanded options have made it tougher for traditional nursing homes to fill beds in their facilities. Nursing home officials make money based on the payments paid for the care of each resident. The more residents at the facility, the more money the home receives. However, with more seniors taking advantage of options besides traditional nursing homes, the competition to fill the beds is tightening. As a result, many areas near Chicago are “overbedded”—meaning that there are more available places in nursing homes than there are individuals in need of nursing home care.

In fact, many nursing home officials are attempting to avoid further competition by stopping the creation of new long-term care facilities. For example, in the Rockford area, nursing home administrators are hoping that state officials stop the creation of two new special facilities—Pecatonica Pavilion and Warrior’s Gateway. The two new locations would cater to different populations, with Warrior’s Gateway specifically targeting those with traumatic brain injuries and multiple traumas. However, regardless of their clients, nursing home administrators believe that the new organizations would simply be more competition, making it harder for them to fill available beds in their nursing homes.

The declining occupancy rates have ultimately led to tighter budgets at many facilities. The budget challenges can pose a real problem for patient care.

Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti are well aware of the potential for neglect at nursing facilities when the business-side of the enterprise completely overwhelms the quality of care. With vulnerable elderly residents involved, the quality of care given at these facilities should never be sacrificed in an attempt to save cash. But when money becomes especially scare at these facilities, nursing home officials often panic and resort to arcane budget reduction measures.

For example, nursing staff and nursing assistants are often reduced in order to save on employment costs. But the reductions can go too far, because Illinois nursing home law requires that each resident be given a certain minimum amount of nursing care each day. Our attorneys continue to watch local facilities to ensure that these and similar requirements are met. Please contact our office if you suspect that the care at a local nursing home is being sacrificed.

An article in The Gazette, a monthly publication of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, pointed to an interesting new study that suggests new methods that may help extend the life of cancer victims in nursing homes.

The research out of the New England Journal of Medicine specifically found that “palliative care” extended the length and quality of life of patients who had been diagnosed with lung cancer. According to GetPalliativeCare.org, the treatment is a medical specialty that includes a variety of techniques to improve the quality of life of patents facing serious illness. It focuses on intense communication with the patient, managing of pain, and coordination with personal development.

In other words, palliative care includes all of the components to patient care besides the basic treatments of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The treatment is often confused with hospice care. While hospice care typically involves some palliative care, the two are not synonymous.

The research cited in the article revealed that patients with fast-growing lung cancer were happier and lived three months longer if they received treatment that included a palliative care component. In this case, the palliative care included pain management, legal support, religious support, and other services.

Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti fully endorse any strategy that is shown to improve the quality of life of residents living in these medical care facilities. Many residents ultimately receive abysmal treatment when forced to suffer at a bad nursing home. At many of these negligent facilities, even life-saving medical care is mismanaged, leading to injury and death.

Yet, it is important to remember that a nursing facility should provide more than just bare-bones medical care to keep an elderly resident alive. Instead, these facilities need to understand that elderly residents are often vibrant, mentally active, eager members of society who need stimulation, challenge, and excitement just as any other person does. Those needs and desires do not end once someone moves into a nursing home or once they are diagnosed with a serious illness. As this study suggests, providing those extra components of care can actually have health benefits. All nursing homes should explore whether their facility can use this new research to improve the quality of lives of their residents.

The Fox River Pavilion, a care facility in Aurora, recently received several Type “A” Violations from the Illinois Department of Public Health and was fined $20,000. The violations resulted from failure to provide proper facilities for its residents and allowing another resident to physically attack several others in the facility in a particularly egregious form of nursing home negligence.

First, the nursing home was failed to provide basic accommodations—a suitable bed—for one of its residents. This particular resident was 6 feet, 8 inches tall. The bed that he was forced to sleep in, however, was too short, forcing his head to hit the top of the bed stand. In addition, he was not allowed sheets of sufficient size to cover his entire body. Besides that, IIllinois nursing home investigators uncovered troubling information about a particularly violent male resident who physically attacked several female residents at Fox Pavilion.

These violations are not the first signs of trouble at Fox River. Earlier this year a resident at the facility was killed after an argument between himself and his roommate. Nursing home administrators failed to prevent the altercation. As a result of the deadly incident, federal authorities stopped its government funding of the facility.

Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti have experience fighting for victims of negligent nursing home care. Be sure to contact them or any similar attorney if you know of violations similar to the one at Fox River Pavilion.

The Illinois Department of Health produces quarterly reports on nursing home violators. To access the IDPH report on this violation, please click the link.

The Foster’s Daily Democrat wrote this week about developments in a case involving nursing home theft. A former nursing assistant at the Riverside Rest Home was denied bail recently after being arresting for stealing medication from patients at the facility.

Twenty-four year old Alesha Neault worked at Riverside until her arrest this June. Her role was to provide a variety of basic care to the elderly residents, assisting licensed nurses with medically-based tasks. Part of that work involved handling medication for some of the residents. As authorities eventually uncovered, she abused her position at the facility to support her own illegal drug habit.

Specifically, Ms. Neault was found to have stolen Fentanyl patches that had been prescribed to two patients at Riverside. This was a particularly egregious theft of medication, because it was not only an illegal theft, but it directly deprived the patients to whom it was actually prescribed. Medical care professionals are often found to have stolen medication from hospital storage. While illegal, that conduct does not directed harm patients to who need the medication. In this case, Neault was not only willing to break the law to support to addiction, but had no qualms about allowing her theft to deprive patients of medication who actually had ongoing pain that needed control. They were forced to suffer through the pain.

Obviously these examples of nursing home abuse are appalling, and the offending employee should be punished to the full extent of the law. However, as our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti are well aware, these cases of individual lawbreaking are often indicative of larger problems with the management of nursing facilities. When staffing decisions are made quickly or with lax standards, negligent and abusive employees like Aslesha Neault are invited to wreak havoc on the lives of residents. That should never be allowed. Please contact a nursing home lawyer if you have had any experience with unqualified nursing staff members.

The News-Tribune posted a story last weekend about recent investigations by the Illinois Department of Public Health after a complaint was filed against an employee at the La Salle County nursing home. Details about the complaint are minimal, because the investigation is ongoing. However, it is known that a certified nursing assistant at the facility is claimed to have committed some act of sexual abuse on a resident.

This is not the first hint of problems at this particular Illinois facility. Over the past two years, the home has experienced other molestation incidents—involving residents abusing other residents. In addition, the financial decisions made by the administrators have been questioned. In one instance the nursing home committee of the county board ignored required processes in state law when bidding on furniture for the facility.

With these recent problems is it no surprise that the La Salle County nursing home has lacked leadership—the previous administrator resigned earlier this month over disagreements about hiring powers. The string of management problems has led many on the La Salle County Board (which governs the nursing home) to look into privatization options.

The repeated problems at this county board institution are a sober reminder that both public and private elder care facilities suffer from abuse and neglect. Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti have been involved in legal fights involving abuse in various homes for the elderly. The La Salle example makes clear that nursing home abuse can run rampant in facilities run by governments without clear accountability standards. However, private institutions which seek to make a profit off these facilities are often just as willing to sacrifice the quality of care in order to save on the bottom line. No matter who runs these facilities, the appropriate resources must be expended to ensure that the level of care complies with the law and protects the rights of elderly residents.

The Illinois Nursing Home Care Act is the guiding law that sets standards of care for residents in nursing homes in the state. The law is intended to ensure that the vulnerable patients in these facilities receive a certain quality of care at all times. However, as our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have experienced first-hand, many homes fall far short of the standard obligated by law.

Recently, a group that advocates for the rights of Illinois nursing home residents protested in front a facility that has repeatedly failed to provide the basic care to its residents demanded by the law. As Chicago’s Breaking News Center reported, the group, Progress Center for Independent Living, demonstrated in front of the Crestwood Terrace Nursing Home. The facility, located southwest of Chicago, is claimed to have been particularly negligent in meeting its obligation to ensure that resides retain a sense of dignity in their living conditions.

Complaints at the facility include a wide-range of breaches of care. Some resident are not given their medication on time (or at all), some are denied visitors, and personal mail is often opened by staff members. Even the ability the walk around the grounds is often denied. One resident reports that other residents were allowed to steal his belongings—his dentures, hand brace and clothing—and nothing was done to replace them for months. A spokesman for the group organizing the protest claimed, “There are so many violations regarding basic rights of the patients at this home, it is beyond comprehension.”

As CiteHealth notes, even the self-reported care given to residents at Crestwood is failing. The amount of daily care time that a resident receives from certified nursing assistants, vocational nurses, and regular staff members are all much lower than the average at Crestwood.

The advocacy group also notes that the facility makes it virtually impossible for a resident to save up enough money to live on their own. With Social Security checks going directly to the facility, each patient is ultimately given only $30 out of that check for their own purposes. This extreme limiting of personal income creates a dependency on the facility that a resident is unlikely ever to break.

If you know of any similar abuses at a facility near you, please contact a nursing home attorney to help put an end to the negligent treatment.

Nursing home abuse and exploitation takes many forms. The vulnerability of many of our elderly residents at these facilities make them prime targets for anyone who wishes to force themselves upon them because of their often mentally or physically weakness. The abuse can be physical, sexual, emotional, mental, or even financial.

For example, a recent case reported at Alabama Local News involves four nursing home residents being involuntarily enrolled in insurance programs that they did not want.

Officials in the state arrested Kimberly Bisslessi Eddins last week after evidence surfaced showing that she signed up four separate residents of the nursing home Coventry Health Care for insurance. In order to receive the commissions on the sales of these insurance packages, Eddins secretly signed up the vulnerable patients for insurance coverage starting in late 2008. In total, the fraudulent sales netted Eddins over $3,800 in commissions and cost the residents untold fees in premiums.

In is unclear form the report exactly how Eddins was able to access the necessary information from the residents to make the illegal sign-ups. She had gathered their names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers.

This latest form of exploitation of the elderly is just another example to be added to the many that our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have seen after decades of fighting for abused residents at these facilities. Most residents are brought into nursing homes specifically because it is assumed that they are too vulnerable to avoid injury, and exploitation if they remain living without close supervision. However, as this and countless other examples demonstrate, the vulnerabilities of these residents continue to be taken advantage of while livining in long-term care facilities. In fact, being forced to live in substandard nursing facilities makes it even more likely that a residents’ mental or physical state will be exploited. Be sure to keep a close eye on all the activities of your elderly loved ones, and contact a nursing home lawyer today if you suspect any problems with their care.

The Record Searchlight posted an insightful article this week discussing some financial ins and outs regarding nursing home care. The discussion begins by explaining that many Americans often overlook the financial component of skilled nursing home stays.

Nearly one out of every three Americans will spend at least some time in a skilled nursing facility. The reasons for the stay vary widely, but one of the most common is to recuperate following extended surgery. Interestingly, men average much shorter stays at these facilities than women. The typical male skilled nursing home resident will stay at the facility for nine months, while the average female resident has a three year stay.

One reason for the difference is that men typically die earlier than woman. As men age, their wives are often still around to care for them at home. The surviving wives often do not have a spouse to provide skilled care, necessitating longer times in nursing facilities.

Considering the high use of skilled nursing facilities, it is important for all elderly individuals to consider the possible financial costs of residing in one of these homes. On average, the stay will cost around $75,000 a year. As the article mentions, a combination of Medicare and Medicare supplement insurance (Medigap) typically covers the first 100 days of care at a nursing facility following three-day stays at a hospital. After that initial 100 days, however, the financial dynamics change.

Individual long-term care insurance would cover the additional expense, but that must have been acquired well-ahead of the time the resident actually needs to reside in the facility. Without that, residents much either pay the costs themselves or hope to qualify for government Medicaid programs. The government system is based entirely on financial need, calculated according to a combination of factors.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti understand the perilous financial situation faced by many elderly individuals in need of long-term nursing home care. We encourage all those seniors and their families to plan ahead for the possible financial implications of these decisions. Be sure to consult experts in the nursing home laws of your state to ensure that you are on proper legal footing with all of your decisions.

A jury this week awarded $3.1 million dollars plus still-to-be-determined punitive damages following a nursing home lawsuit, according to the Orange County Register.

Barbara Lefforge was literally at the St. Edna Subacute & Rehabilitation Center for half a day—only 5 ½ hours—before they made a costly medication error that nearly ended Barbara’s life. She was at the facility to recover from tendon repair surgery. Her doctor erroneously prescribed 50mg of morphine, instead of the 50 mg of Demerol. The nursing home personnel at St. Edna’s were alerted to the mistake by the pharmacist, noting that the dosage was too high. Nursing home staff members were unable to get the full dosage from the pharmacist, but they didn’t take that as a warning sign. Instead, they grabbed 30mg of morphine from the office’s emergency medication kit and gave that to Barbara.

The negative effects of the overdose were visible shortly after Barbara took the medication. However, instead of taking her to get treatment immediately, nursing home staff did nothing. She wasn’t brought to the hospital until the following morning when she was barely breathing. By the time they arrived the damage had accelerated; the delay resulted in brain damage.

St. Edna’s is owned by Covenant Care, a conglomerate which owns 25 separate facilities in the state. St. Edna’s did not have a track record of prioritizing patient safety. They were previously one of only a handful of nursing homes that accepted extra state money, $15 million, while cutting staff and services at the same time.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti continue to be saddened by the basic breaches of care at nursing homes. Failing to understand the risks of morphine overdose on top of an inability to rush a distressed individual to the hospital are mistakes that all too often have deadly consequences. The only way to hold these facilities accountable and ensure that future residents do not fall victim to the same abuse is to force the business to pay for its errors and make changes to ensure that the problem is corrected.

The Washington Post published a story yesterday on the latest development in a large class-action nursing home lawsuit out of Maryland. On Wednesday the state began paying $16 million to various nursing homes and their residents as part of a settlement from a nursing home lawsuit filed in 2005.

The lawsuit involved the improper methods that the state used to gauge the ability of nursing home residents to pay for their own care without government assistance. According to the lawsuit, state officials erroneously inflated the income of certain nursing home residents. The state consequently used that inflation to refuse to provide supplemental financial support to offset the cost of their medical care at nursing homes.

Specifically, both state law and federal law required the state to consider the debt that a resident accrues while awaiting approval for Medicaid coverage as part of the calculation into their ability to pay for their own care without government support. Yet, officials did not factor this adverse financial burden into assessing resident finances. As a result of their mistake, many nursing home residents were left in severe financial straits—needing nursing home care but unable to pay for all of those services without some assistance from state welfare agencies.

In total almost 12,000 current and former residents were affected by the violation of nursing home law. The settlement will attempt to provide relief to those victimized by the legal wrong. Besides that basic fair compensation the resolution of the case also shone a light on the problem, ensuring that from now on the state will make changes to its calculation of funding. In that way, future nursing home residents are spared the stress and heartache of trying to survive while being denied legally obligated medical funds.

As this case demonstrates, and as our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti have learned, lawsuits can serve an important social function. Besides attempting to correct a wrong to a particular resident, these lawsuits often serve as wake-up calls to extremely negligent conduct. In that way, future harm is prevented and the system of care is improved for all.

Yesterday we posted an example of elder financial abuse involving the complex swindling a Chicago area senior citizen. In that case, the retiree was cajoled out of $500,000 after investing money with a con-man whom he assumed was using the funds to develop a construction business.

Today, the St. Petersburg Times discusses another form of senior financial exploitation on the other end of the spectrum—the outright theft of money from nursing home resident accounts.

Until her firing yesterday, Janice Lynn Smith was the receptionist at Heritage Park, a nursing home near Miami. As with many other employees at nursing homes, Smith was in a position to gain access to the accounts of the nursing home residents. Apparently, the ability to steal from these vulnerable residents at the facility was too much for her to resist.

Smith began taking money out of the trust funds of four residents at the facility, all of whom were over 85 years old. In the end, she withdrew nearly $4,000 from these resident accounts and put it in her own pocket. Fortunately, other nursing home staff noticed problems with the trust accounts. The nursing home administrator began investigating the problem, ultimately revealing the truth about Smith and the theft.

In most cases of elder financial abuse, the problem goes unreported and victims are never compensated for their losses. Many states, including Illinois, have recently begun programs to help stem the wave of elder abuse problems, but much work remains before the problem is truly extinguished.

Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti spend our time fighting for nursing home residents because we understand their vulnerability while living at these facilities. Elderly residents often depend on nursing home staff members to help both with their physical well-being as well as their financial well-being. Any facility that allows its staff members to take advantage of that vulnerability for personal gain needs to be held accountable for their negligence.

The Chicago Tribune recently published a troubling story of financial abuse affecting an elderly man from nearby Des Plaines.

Will Harling is seventy one years old, a fact that he believes made him a more attractive target for his abuser, Taha Mahmood. Mr. Harling met Mahmood through a mortgage underwriter, and the two began discussing possible business opportunities. Mahmood seemed to say all the right things, even claiming to have gone to the same high school at Mr. Harling. Eventually, Mr. Harling agreed to assist Mahmood in starting a construction business. However, the funds that were provided to help jump-start the new project were never used to build the business. Instead, they went straight into Mohmood’s pocket.

The ruse was taken to new heights when Mahmood manufactured a fake loan approval document (totaling $2.6 million) in order to convince Harling that the project was progressing. Eventually the repossession of a Rolls-Royce that had been purchased under Mr. Harling’s name alerted him to the fraud.

In total, the con-man stole almost $500,000 from his elderly neighbor. Mr. Harling is now struggling to stay afloat. He is still not sure whether he will be able to afford to keep him home.

Mahmood’s exploitation of Will Harling seems to be merely one incident in a string of fraudulent actions that swindled funds from innocent parties. In another case, a businessman from Highland Park agreed to finance a small business trip led by Mahmood. In the end, an unnecessary private jet was chartered and the businessman was out $127,000. In other cases, the scheming con-man was charged with writing $11,000 worth of bad checks and stealing $4,000 from a high-end department store.

Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti are continually disgusted by the length that some will go to take advantage of our vulnerable senior citizens. This form of elder financial exploitation occurs all too frequently, including at nursing homes. Recent efforts have attempted to raise awareness of the problem, but the risk of senior financial abuse remains high. Please remain vigilant to possible exploitation of elderly family and friends.

The La Salle County Nursing Home administrator, Amjad Hussain, resigned his position last week after only six months on the job, reports the News-Tribune.

According to the report, Mr. Hussain had been working towards positive changes at the facility since he started the position in February. The nursing home, located in Ottawa, IL, had previously had a history of abuse and neglect. In the two years prior to his arrival several residents of the nursing home had been sexually abused by other residents. In addition, the facility had gotten into legal trouble after failing to follow state law in some of its furniture purchases.

Yet, just recently, under Amjad Hussain’s leadership, the facility had passed an Illinois Department of Public Health survey which confirmed that appropriate changes were being made to correct the previous examples of nursing home abuse.

But the improvements to the facility guided by Administrator Hussain ended last week when he offered his resignation to the La Salle County Board. The exact reason for the resignation is unclear; however some sources have confirmed that the main cause was Hussain’s frustration at his inability to remove underperforming employees. Apparently, there were legal uncertainties regarding the Administrator’s power to fire substandard employees who provide care to the elderly residents. Hussain decided that he did not want to work at the facility if those potentially negligent employees were allowed to keep working with residents.

Employment complications exist in any workplace. However, when the care of vulnerable elderly residents is at stake, no workplace can afford to allow negligent or abusive healthcare workers to risk the safety of our loved ones. Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have been involved in countless legal battles involving inadequate nursing home employees who neglected and abused residents, often leading to their death.

Please contact our nursing home lawyers if you know of anyone who has similarly suffered at the hands of negligent nursing home staff members.

The Florida Times-Union profiled a nursing home entrepreneur who has continuously skirted the law, tolerating nursing home abuse in an effort to maximize personal profits. Robert Hagan owns sixteen nursing homes in several states, a business which has provided him with an upper class living—he owns three million-dollar-plus homes. Mr. Hagan has built his nursing home business fortune by agreeing to take “difficult” residents, including Alzheimer’s patients, the psychotically ill, and criminal offenders.

Mr. Kagan was quick to accept the tens of millions of dollars in federal money to care for these difficult patients. But he was less eager to accept the responsibility of ensuring that the facilities that housed the residents were safe and secure. One of his nursing homes in particular, Glenwood Nursing Center, has shown itself to be a bastion of abuse and neglect. For example, one resident, Virginia Thurston, was raped at Glenwood in 2002 by another resident. Nursing home staff members failed to prevent the attack, even though they were well aware of the potential for assault.

Ms. Thurston’s daughter filed suit against the nursing home for their negligence in allowing the attack. After hearing the case, a jury demanded Glenwood pay the Thurston family $750,000 for their mistakes.

The family has not yet received a dime.

Mr. Hagan has used procedural and business maneuvers to avoid paying the judgment against his facility. He attempted to “sell” the facility to a new business to thwart the collection of the judgment. Officials only recently discovered that Hagan was the owner of the new company which supposedly bought the nursing home. Ownership did not actually change hands.

This attempt to wiggle out of his responsibilities and ignore nursing home laws seems to be a trend for Hagan. In fact, Florida state officials have attempted to revoke Glenwood’s nursing license to force the closure of the facility after repeated examples of residents becoming physically aggressive with one another. Yet after a stay was granted, the nursing facility is still operating indefinitely while they drag out the appeals process.

The extreme lengths to which nursing home administrators are willing to go to avoid paying for their mistakes is exactly why it is important to contact nursing home abuse attorneys like ours at Levin & Perconti. Even obvious examples of nursing home abuse are often difficult to translate into legal judgments. After a verdict is reached, it then takes even more legal maneuvering to actually collect the money. Please do not allow yourself to be taken advantage of by profit-driven nursing home administrators. If you or a loved one has been neglected at a nursing home contact our lawyers today.

John J. Donahue was 93 years old when he died in 2005 following a horrific accident at the Embassy House nursing home, according to the Boston Herald. The facility is owned by Kindred Healthcare, a for-profit company which owns more than 40 nursing homes in and around Boston.

While living at the facility, a mechanical machine known as a “Hoyer lift” was used to lift Mr. Donahue from his bed. Two nursing home employees were supposed to used the machine at all times, because it’s the process needed to be performed delicately to avoid injuring the resident. However, in 2005 a staff member at the nursing home attempted to move Mr. Donahue without the necessary aide of a second employee. The single aide was unable to perform the operation safely. During the move a metal safety hook on the device caught Mr. Donahue’s face. The hook eventually gouged his eye, which eventually had to be removed. The victimized resident died a little more after the accident from sepsis.

Mr. Donahue’s family sued following the accident. However, they initially ran into a few legal complexities. A few years before his death, the nursing home had asked Mr. Donahue to sign a “voluntary” arbitration agreement whereby he agreed to give up his right to sue the nursing home following an accident or his death and instead arbitrate the disagreement. Arbitration is an alternative form of dispute resolution that involves a neutral “arbitrator.” The arbitration process can be long, expensive, and unfeasible to many.

Eventually, a judge invalidated the arbitration agreement that Mr. Donahue had signed, because he was 91 years old at the time and suffering from dementia. Obviously, it is highly inappropriate for a nursing home chain to ask a mentally suffering resident to sign away his legal rights.

It was over five years later that an actual trial took place regarding the Hoyer lift accident, with the jury awarding compensation to the family for the negligent nursing home conduct.

Nursing homes typically use all the legal tricks in their arsenal to avoid paying up for the mistakes that their employees make. That is why our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti encourage you to contact our office and allow us to use our decades of experience battling nursing home abuse to help vindicate your rights.

Please Click Here to learn more about the tragic case of Mr. Donahue.

We have been tracking the case out of the Britthaven of Chapel Hill, a nursing home embroiled in a tragic controversy of overmedication and death. As previously reported, a registered nurse at the facility was charged with second-degree murder and six counts of patient abuse.

The nurse, Angela Almore, had given several Alzheimer’s patients opiate drugs in an effort to make them more manageable and easier to handle. None of the patients were supposed to be receiving any pain medication. Eventually, the reckless medication behavior led to the death of one resident, Rachel Holliday. Ms. Holliday died from pneumonia-related asphyxiation, with “morphine toxicity” as a factor.

As WRAL News is reporting, state officials have now cited the nursing home itself for its negligent conduct that allowed the abuses to occur. After an extensive investigation of the facility, state officials uncovered many examples of unprofessional conduct, inadequate services, and unnecessary prescriptions of drugs. The state is fining the facility $20,000 for the errors, an amount which many local officials believe to be too small considering the seriousness of the violations.

The findings of other violations at the nursing home beyond the extreme example of opiate drugging suggest that once a culture of negligent treatment is accepted at a facility, repeated abuses occur. It is for that reason that it is especially important for even small signs of substandard nursing home care to be confronted and fixed.

Basic nursing home violations are often a slippery slope leading to severe abuse and death for vulnerable elderly residents. That is why our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti support all efforts to hold inadequate facilities accountable for the abiding by state and federal nursing home laws. Please contact our attorneys if suspect any violations as a facility near you.

Embassy Health Care, a nursing home outside of Chicago in Will County, was recently challenged by nursing home regulators for providing inadequate care to the residents at the facility.

ABC 7 News recently discussed the problems the facility faces after federal inspectors uncovered troubling incidents of poor nursing home care. Specifically, the Wilmington nursing home was found to have neglected patients leading to the development of pressure sores. As has been explained often on this blog, pressure sores (also known as bed sores or pressure ulcers) are painful and harmful skin lesions that are almost always caused by inadequate care.

In addition, regulators noted that building maintenance problems were ignored by the facility. A fundamental component of proper resident care at nursing homes is the assurance that the actual building itself is safe and secure. Embassy was failing at this basic task.

After finding these problems, regulators explained that if they were not adequately corrected, the facility would lose all of its federal funding near the end of August. Embassy is a for-profit facility that relies heavily on Medicaid funding in its quest for revenue. Failure to receive those funds would be extremely damaging to the facility's survival.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti fully support all federal efforts that hold our nursing homes accountable for the care that they provided. Many fail to realize that the funds used to pay for the care of many nursing home residents come directly from the government in the form of Medicare and Medicaid payments. That means that it is the taxpayers who foot the bill for these facilities. In that way, inadequate and fraudulent care at these facilities is not only a problem for the abused resident, but also a swindling of everyone's hard-earned tax dollars.

Whether you have family member at a failing nursing home or are just a concerned citizen, we encourage everyone to seek out trained legal professionals if they suspect substandard nursing home care. The proper treatment of our elderly resident can never be compromised.

WIFR News recently discussed the latest nursing home inspections as part of Operation Guardian – an Illinois program aimed at improving care at nursing home facilities across the state.

Illinois officials conducted the latest surprise investigation at Park Strathmoor in Rockford. While at the facility, the inspectors found several residents with arrest warrants. The nursing home officials had no idea that some of their residents were wanted for crimes. These findings bring to the total number of nursing home residents to found with active arrest warrants to 84 since the Operation began.

As Attorney General Lisa Madigan explained, "people who have criminal histories are not being denied care but... We do not want a situation where elderly, vulnerable individuals are going to be harmed in our nursing homes."

Madigan was spurred to begin the program in part based on the high number of calls her office receives from friends and family of nursing home residents who worry about the care at the facility where their loved one is staying. In fact, many staff members at these Illinois nursing homes have notified state officials about the lacking conditions in which they work.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have similarly seen the downright abysmal conditions at many of these care facilities. Many nursing homes involved in our legal cases have provided little to no protection for residents victimized at the hands of other residents. It only takes one instance of a nursing home failing to provide proper oversight of residents for sexual and physical abuse to occur.

While Operation Guardian seeks to root out some potential dangerous residents, the vast majority of potentially harmful nursing home residents will remain hidden. That is why it is imperative for nursing homes to conduct their own screening protocols to keep out particularly dangerous individuals. On top of that, these facilities need to provide careful monitoring of all complaints from one resident against another.

If you suspect improper treatment of any kind at a nursing home near you, please contact our nursing home lawyers and learn what can be done to vindicate the victims and protect all future residents at the facility.

Please Click Here to read more about this latest Illinois nursing home investigation.

A negligent Chicago nursing home will be closed by the state, reports CBS 2 Chicago. Columbus Manor Residential Care Home faces over $100,000 in fines and closure after Illinois nursing home inspectors uncovered repeated examples of inappropriate care at the facility.

Reports confirm that residents were attacking each other physically, and one elderly female resident was forced to fight off another male resident's attempt to sexual assault her. In another case, the nursing home staff failed to inform the doctor of one resident about his serious illness. The 61 year old resident died as a result.

A basic component of any nursing home care is honest reporting about medical conditions and ensuring a safe living environment for all residents at the facility. However, Columbus Manor was unable to meet even these fundamental requirements of adequate nursing home care.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have experience uncovering the negligent, abusive conduct at our city's nursing homes. We have fought countless legal battles on behalf of victimized seniors and their families who have endured these shameful care practices for years. Our commitment is to vindicating the abused and helping to ensure that future acts of nursing home negligence never occur.

That is why we support all efforts by Illinois regulators to shut down the worst nursing homes in our city. Unfortunately, many administrators of these facilities refuse to make the necessary changes to ensure that their residents are treated to the quality of care that they deserve and that the law demands. The only recourse is to close them down so that no future resident is put in peril.

Please contact our office if you know of any similar nursing home abuses.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that shed light on a widespread problem that plagues the care given to nursing home residents everywhere: corrupt deals between nursing home administrators and drug companies.

The article focuses on Joel Gemunder, the former CEO of Omnicare, the largest distributor of pharmaceuticals to nursing homes. Mr. Gemunder officially announced his retirement last week, taking almost $130 million in pension benefits on his way out. The amount is a staggering sum of money for a single individual, especially considering that the stock value of the company he is leaving dropped over 60% in his final years running the enterprise.

The mammoth pension amount is consistent with how Omnicare has prioritized values: cash over quality--profits over care. Over the course of its history, the company has even shown a willingness to break the law in order to make as much money as possible. A recent Chicago example has made headlines.

As has previously been reported on this blog, Chicago nursing home magnet Morris Esformes sold his company, Total Pharmacy, to Omnicare several years ago. Recent records have uncovered that during the sale process, Mr. Esformes illegally took kickback money from Omnicare to ensure that certain pharmacy contracts would remain in place following the sale. Besides being an illegal dedication of Medicare and Medicaid funds, these practices trivialize nursing home care.

Instead of making pharmaceutical choices based on quality and need, these practices treat senior medication as if it were merely a way to maximize profits. Our senior nursing home residents should receive the best medication possible targeted directly to their need. However, as this story indicates, Chicago nursing home operators and large drug companies are collectively using our nursing home residents as means to increase their own wallet size.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti support the simple values of quality and balance in nursing home care. It should not be a controversial position to believe that the most important goal of nursing home operators is to provide the best care possible to the residents in their facility. Sadly, quality care continues to take a backseat to profits at many Chicago nursing homes.

If you know of an incident at a facility near you, please contact our offices and learn how we can help.

A nursing home has been cited by state officials for failing to prevent and properly report the tragic sexual abuse of one resident at the facility by another resident.

The Lexington Herald-Leader is reporting on the incident. An 88 year old Alzheimer's resident at the facility, Mae Campbell, was in her room when a male resident entered and refused to allow her to leave. When nursing aides finally found Ms. Campbell in her room, she had semen on her and the male patient's privates were exposed.

The state has issued several citations against the facility, noting, ""The facility failed to protect residents from unwanted sexual contact, failed to report the allegations to appropriate state agencies and failed to thoroughly investigate the allegations of sexual abuse."

Alzheimer's patients at nursing facilities across the country are often treated by both staff members and other residents in a disturbing, dehumanized manner. It is incomprehensible for any of our elderly friends and family to have their dignity abused as they suffer mental and physical health problems. Our nursing home abuse attorneys at Levin & Perconti have waged countless battles against all those who take advantage of these vulnerable community members. Elder abuse will not be stopped unless all those who witness the conduct report it and take action.

The family of Ms. Campbell came forward with their story in order to shed light on the problem. Ms. Campbell daughter explained, ""It is my hope that today's charges send a message to nursing home operators and administrators that they have an obligation to notify authorities if a resident is abused while in their care,"

Our lawyers encourage friends and family of nursing home residents to pay close attention to the care provided at their facility. All too often no one speaks up for these abused, suffering seniors -- not even the nursing home workers in charge of their protection.

To read more about nursing home abuse, please Click Here.

A basic part of almost all nursing home care is the guarantee that staff members will ensure that the most vulnerable residents be given near constant supervision to prevent harm. Many patients in these facilities decided to begin living there precisely because they had conditions which required close monitoring to ensure their safety. Yet, despite the simplicity of the task, day in and day out many nursing home staff members fail to follow through and give inadequate supervision, leaving vulnerable residents alone.

That is what happened last week at a nursing home in Scranton. The Times-Tribune reported on the serious accident at the Jewish House, involving 81-year old resident Elizabeth LaCoste.

After watching a musical performance with several other residents away from the facility, Mrs. LaCoste was left outside the performance center in her wheelchair. The sidewalk where she was left was slanted, with one side pitching downward toward a side street. Without nursing home staff to assist her, Mrs. LaCoste's chair eventually started traveling down the slope. Eventually, her wheelchair rushed all the way to the bottom, popped over the curb, and threw the helpless nursing home resident into the middle of the hard, paved road.

The careless nursing home staff incident resulted in Mrs. LaCoste breaking her collarbone, suffering head injuries, bruises, and abrasions. She died a month after the accident.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti sympathize with the friends and family of Mrs. LaCoste and understand their outrage at the treatment of their loved one. Elopement occurs all too often at these facilities, where residents are ignored for too long or in too risky situations, resulting in harmful accidents like this. If you know of similar problems at a nursing home near your, please contact our offices to learn what can be done to stop it.

The Los Angeles Times reported on a tragic act of inadequate nursing home care that has led to the death of a resident at the Pilgrim Haven Health Facility.

The doctor for the 85-year old victim was very clear when he explained to nursing home officials that the patient had a heart condition and diabetes which required his walker be nearby at all times. In addition the doctor explained that the resident would require supervision at all time while walking or attempting to walk. However, even those simple, direct commands were too much for the negligent nursing home staff to handle.

The resident first fell in early October attempting to get out of his bed. His walker was not within his reach. An employee found the man, claims he only suffered a small scratch and failed to check-up further. Two months later the elderly resident fell yet again. A quick neurological examination after the second fall did show any major problems, but that same night the man began looking pale, listless, and started vomiting.

However, because of short staffing levels, no registered nurse was on duty the night the patient began having these problems. Because of that, nursing home employees basically ignored the symptoms for several hours. Employees only acted the next morning, transferring the man to the hospital where he died very shortly after arriving. Doctors at the hospital immediately discovered that head trauma had caused bleeding in the man's brain, but by the time he arrived at the hospital it was too late to save him.

Following the incident state health officials have cited the nursing home for its abuse and negligence. They are required to pay a $100,000 fine and improve its fall monitoring. Regardless of their failure to having proper nursing staff on hand, and inability to effectively monitor the movement of a known-fall risk, the nursing home officials still claim that they acted properly. They are appealing the decision.

Nursing home negligence like the failure to prevent falls, occurs at facilities big and small in all parts of the country. Unfortunately, any time that a facility stands to lose money because of their bad acts, they resort to all he legal maneuvers in their arsenal to avoid paying. That is where our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti come in. Our attorneys have decades of experience fighting for the friends and family of victims similar to the resident in this case. We are committed to standing up the large nursing home companies and asserting the legal rights of those injured by their mistakes and abuses. If you need help standing up to an abusive nursing home, please contact our offices and explain your story.

In several posts over the past two weeks we reported on the new legislation recently passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn to improve safety and care at nursing homes in Illinois. The new Illinois nursing home law mandated new staffing levels at many facilities and increased background checking of incoming residents. The purpose of both prongs of the legislation was to ensure that all residents were lawfully at the facility and that sufficient resources were available to provide them with the level of care they deserved.

The effects of the new mandates are already being seen at Illinois nursing homes as several facilities begin ramping up their staff levels and quality of care measures. For example, as reported in Rockford’s Channel 13 News, the Asta Care Center in Rockford recently admitted that to comply with the new regulations, it would need to hire two to four more psychiatrists and social workers. These new workers, said an administrator at the facility, will provide more daily face-to-face interaction with nursing home residents. This increased professional care will allow the facility to properly measure the happiness of the residents of efficacy of the nursing home’s programs on health and wellness. These are small, but important steps in the effort to stop nursing home abuse and neglect.

These new requirements incumbent upon Illinois nursing homes mark the bare minimum quality of care for elderly residents at these nursing homes. The failure of many current facilities to meet these basic care standards marks the obvious problem we still have across the state in providing abuse-free treatment of our seniors.

Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti understand this continual fight to provide respectable care to our vulnerable seniors. We plan on working hard to ensure that the new law in Illinois is honored by nursing home administrators. If you suspect inadequate care at a facility near you, please contact our office to discuss the legal options to improve the quality of care provided to the residents at the nursing home.

A new Associated Press report describes a horrific example elder abuse involving the dehumanization of elderly residents at nursing home.

Authorities recently arrested six employees at the Valley View Skilled Nursing Facility in Ukiah, California for a grotesque “joke” involving the inhumane abuse of the residents in their care. The employees allegedly covered several residents with a slippery cream. The purpose was to “grease” the residents so that their co-workers would have a difficult time handling the residents when providing basic care, like using the restroom and moving from one location to another.
The abused residents suffered from dementia and were therefore unable to speak up for themselves.

The possibility for physical injury from slipping and falling alone is enough to jolt anyone’s sense of compassion. But the extreme disregard for the humanity and dignity of the residents is perhaps even more disturbing.

No words can properly describe the callous, calculated, disgusting treatment of elderly residents by the very people charged with their care. What is perhaps most shocking is that the incident involved not one, but six separate employees at the nursing home. Facilities often claim that abuse only occurs rarely and is caused by isolated, renegade individuals. However, as this example demonstrates, many nursing homes fosters a culture in which many employees feel that treating their residents as inanimate objects is acceptable behavior.

Stories like these are exactly why our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti spend every day fighting for the rights of abused and neglected elderly residents. There are thousands of other seniors stuck in homes just like Valley View who have no one standing up for them when they are treated like objects to be laughed at. Our nursing home attorneys will continue to provide a voice for residents. Please contact our office if you suspect any mistreatment at a nursing home near you.

Illinois State Senator Gary Forby recently wrote an article discussing new Illinois nursing home law. As published in the Carmi Times, the new rules and regulations passed by the Illinois General Assembly were designed to curb the widespread negligence at many nursing homes in Illinois.

Specifically, previous investigations at Illinois care facilities had highlighted the prevalence of physical abuse often caused by inadequate background checks of incoming residents. Many Illinois nursing homes admit convicted felons and residents with dangerous psychiatric disorders. These individuals place other elderly nursing home residents in danger of assault, battery, theft, and other crimes. The prevalence of felons in Illinois nursing homes has most recently been exposed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s surprise nursing home inspections. The Attorney General has conducted a dozen unannounced investigations so far, each time finding several convicted felons hiding among our elderly nursing home residents.

The Illinois governor signed a bill this week seeking to help curb some of these rampant nursing home abuse problems in Illinois. The new bill requires better screening procedures to ensure that new residents are not using the facility to hide from authorities. This includes timely criminal background checks within 24 hours of a possible new resident entering a facility. The screening will also assess whether a resident applicant with certain mental instabilities may be better served at a different location.

In addition the law increases the staffing ratio required at each facility and the number of hours of nursing care that each resident will receive per day. These necessary changes are targeted at limiting the abuses and neglect caused by too few nurses and aides unable to spend the necessary time with each patient to provide the care mandated by law.

On top of that, accountability will be strengthened at the facility, with more state inspectors. These inspectors will help in the daunting process of monitoring the new law to ensure that nursing home comply with the law. All too often, new laws lack effectiveness, because nursing home administrators simply refuse to adequately follow the guidelines and the state does not adequately monitor the homes to ensure that the law is followed.

As we have consistently done in the past, our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti will keep a vigilant eye on all Illinois nursing homes to ensure that this new law is enforced. The care of our elderly residents should never be sacrificed, and the laws must be respected. If you suspect any violations of these new requirement s, please contact our offices.

Law.com is reporting on an important decision that will affect nursing home lawsuits in Pennsylvania. In Scampone v. Grane HealthCare Co., the Supreme Court of the state found that nursing homes were similar to hospitals in the care they provide, and therefore they should be treated by the law in a similar manner.

The case rose to the state Supreme Court after a jury held Grane HealthCare corporately liable for the death of a resident of one of its facilities. The jury determined that Grane’s nursing homes were chronically understaffed, providing substandard care to the plaintiff, Madeline Scampone. Ms. Scampone died of a heart attack, caused in part by the negligent actions of the nursing home staff at the facility.

The decision will allow future victims of nursing home negligence and abuse an easier avenue to achieve justice. In the past, nursing homes and the companies that run them were difficult to sue, because the state courts had not ruled on the relationship between these companies and the residents who depend on their care. However, now nursing home victims will be able to point to this ruling in advancing their claims that the corporations who own nursing home are responsible for the care at those homes.

Judge Mary Jane Bowes explained in the ruling, “Clearly the degree of involvement in the care of patients of skilled nursing home facilities is markedly similar to that of a hospital and bear little resemblance to the sporadic care offered on an out-patient basis in a physician’s office.”

Justice requires that nursing homes and their corporate backers be held responsible for the care provided to residents at their facilities. They should never be allowed to hide behind nuanced legal definitions to avoid paying for their mistakes. Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti understand the importance of this nursing home law ruling. We have seen time and again how nursing home companies cut corners and sacrifice standard care in order to end up with more money in their bank accounts. Nursing homes residents and taxpayers foot the bill for the care of these facilities, and they deserve proper treatment for their payment.

Wisconsin’s largest nursing home remains under investigation this week after continued reports of substandard nursing home care. The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel has been following the developments at Mount Carmel Health & Rehabilitation Center.

The investigation by the state’s public health department is in its second week. The review was prompted by a viral outbreak at the facility which affected at least 21 residents. It was unclear exactly what caused the medical problem which was classified as leading to “generalized respiratory symptoms.”

This is only the latest is a long line of examples of extreme misconduct by the facility. Seven other lawsuits are still pending against the nursing home. On top of that, the state noted 35 specific care violations at the facility this year alone. In one case, staff members were caught lying about the location of a resident. The staff members reported seeing one resident repeatedly over a ten hour period, even though in reality the resident had left the facility and was arrested for prowling in a nearby neighborhood.

The seven remaining lawsuits at the facility involve residents who died as a result of pressure sores, physical falls, failure to provide assistance devices and elopement. It seems that everything that could go wrong at a nursing home has gone wrong at this facility.

Unfortunately the outrageous conduct at Mount Carmel is not an isolated example of chronic nursing home negligence, as our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti know all to well. For decades we have witness the same nursing homes committing the same acts of negligence leading to deadly consequences to the residents at their facilities. Unfortunately too many facilities fail to learn from their previous mistakes.

Often the only thing that gets the attention of negligent nursing homes and their corporate backers are lawsuits that affect their bottom line. Our attorneys are committed to protecting the rights of injured nursing home residents and their families. If you or someone you know has been similarly victimized, please contact our office.

Yet another example of elder financial abuse is being reported in Poughkeepsie Journal. Two female aides were working at the Lake View Arms apartment complex, assisting the elderly residents who lived in the units with basic health and household upkeep tasks.

However, authorities recently discovered that the aides were stealing from the elderly residents to whom they were providing care. The women stole cash, blank checks, and personal property from the vulnerable seniors who they were supposed to be serving. Luckily, police officers were made aware of the theft and arrested the women before they were able to commit any additional acts of robbery. As reported often on this blog, the vast majority of cases of elder financial abuse are never reported. Several billion dollars are taken from seniors each year.

Our Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys at Levin & Perconti encourage more vigilant oversight of the financial transactions of our all vulnerable seniors. Many seniors have no choice but to place enormous trust in the care workers who are supposed to assist in their daily needs. All too often, those workers are unable to resist the temptation to take advantage of their authority and steal the resources of the senior. Sadly, most seniors have no one to stand up to their abusers, and so the thieves get away.

This abuse occurs at the hand of nursing home workers, at-home aides, and even family members of the victim. While many officials are working to limit the problem, there is still enormous work to do before our seniors are protected and respected. Please contact an elder lawyer if you know of any suspicious elder financial abuse.