Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

A jury awarded $1 million in punitive damages to the family of a 104 year-old who died after a brief stay in a nursing home operated by Sunrise Senior Living. The jury found that the nursing home’s abuse and neglect led to her developing pressure ulcers. These ulcers could have been treated, but adequate measures, such as skin checks, were not taken by the facility. The woman only stayed in the Sunrise facility, one of 440 homes operated by Sunrise, for about two months. However, the facility’s negligent care of her pressure ulcers resulted in the woman’s death a mere two weeks after she left the facility.

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Ventas, once one of the poorest performing corporations in the health care business, has now turned its company around to be one of the most profitable. Ventas will move its corporate headquarters to Chicago, bringing a $10 billion portfolio of nursing home, assisted living, and health care facilities. In Illinois, Ventas already has significant real estate holdings after its acquisition of Sunrise Senior Living. Sunrise Senior Living has faced complaints to the Illinois Department of Health for nursing home abuse and neglect and has been the subject of individual nursing home abuse and neglect lawsuits.

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Ventas, a health care real estate investment trust, has seen their second quarter profit rise five fold. The trust recently purchased Sunrise Senior Living for almost $2 billion. Ventas owns hundreds of senior-housing communities and skilled-nursing facilities. Clearly, the nursing home business has been thriving as of late. However, facilities such as Sunrise Senior Living homes have had a history of abuse and neglect. Nursing home owners often blame lack of funds for understaffing and the absence of proper training. Examples such as the rise in Ventas's revenue by almost $100 million shows that there might be more to the story.

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As president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he has long been “hard” on federal regulation, but now he faces it personally. For 12 years, he has been a board member of Sunrise Senior Living, a living facility designed for Senior Citizens. Sunrise Senior Living is a publicly traded company being probed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Sunrise co-founder started as the Chamber of Commerce president’s driver while still in college and later became a Chamber speechwriter. Recently, the SEC began in inquiry into an allegation that this president and other insiders may have improperly cashed $32 million in stock options before Sunrise in May announced an accounting problem that caused its stock to drop.

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