Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse/Neglect

The family of 79-year-old Shirley Marion Renner has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a Yuba City nursing home alleging negligence and abuse. According to this news report in the Appeal Democrat, Renner’s daughter and son – Valeree Espinoza and David Vestal — allege that their mother was horribly neglected at the Yuba Skilled Nursing Center. They say Renner suffered neck and spine injuries, severe bedsores, broken and missing teeth, “physical and emotional pain, desperation, abandonment, feelings of helplessness, anguish, shock, fear of imminent death” and eventually – death.

Although a Placer County death certificate lists heart attack and lung problems as causes of death, the Renner family complains that improperly treated bedsores, malnutrition and dehydration contributed to Renner’s failing health and death in November 2007. Renner has stayed about two years at the Emmanuel Health Care Center, which is now known as the Yuba Skilled Nursing Center and owned by Yuba Care & Rehabilitation Center Inc.

Renner’s son and daughter were also not informed about Renner’s poor condition including the bedsores, missing teeth and bruises on her arms and legs. Renner’s children eventually removed her from the nursing home because their mother thought she would die there. Although medical records have not yet been subpoenaed, Renner was apparently also given inappropriate psychotropic medications to treat dementia and Alzheimer’s. Yuba Skilled Nursing Center gets only a rating of two out of five stars from the Medicare Nursing Home Compare Web site. The nursing home also received eight complaints and two California Department of Public Health deficiencies in 2008.
Continue reading →

An Anaheim nursing home has been fined $75,000 by the California Department of Health for incorrectly reporting that an elderly resident died of a heart attack when he actually choked to death on a tuna sandwich. CBS News reports in this article that California Health and Human Services documents show the Anaheim Crest Nursing Center resident suffered from dementia and was supposed to be given only pureed food.

The incident apparently occurred Sept, 9, but the Orange County nursing home falsely reported that he died of a heart attack. The nursing home did not divulge the fact that the resident had choked on the sandwich until the coroner ruled that the man choked to death. The nursing home’s attorney is saying that this happened because the nursing home conducted a second investigation after the autopsy and learned that the resident had grabbed a sandwich from a food tray. The nursing home is also appealing the $75,000 state fine.

Based on this news report, I get the sense that this was an attempted cover-up by nursing home staff. This man choked on a tuna sandwich. Obviously, someone at this Anaheim nursing home was not telling the truth. They changed the story after the coroner’s autopsy report came out that had a clearly stated cause of death.
Continue reading →

Three nursing home staff members in Kern County have been arrested on suspicion of forcibly drugging patients for their own convenience, an act which resulted in the death of three residents. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the three victims were identified as Fannie May Brinkley, a patient in her 90s; Joseph Shepter, 76; and Alexander Zaiko, 85.

Attorney General Jerry Brown announced the arrests of Gwen Hughes, a former nurse, Debbi Hayes, a pharmacist and Dr. Hoshang Pormir, a physician at Kern Valley Healthcare District in Lake Isabella. All three face elder nursing home abuse charges while Hughes and Hayes face assault with a deadly weapon charges as well. According to the charges filed, among the drugs these so-called professionals used for “chemical restraint” were Zyprexa, Depakote and Risperdal. The families of all three victims have also filed civil complaints against the nursing home.

Apparently, Hughes who took over as Director of Nursing, ordered that Alzheimer’s and dementia patients at the skilled nursing facility be given high doses of psychotropic medications so they would be easy to handle and control. She ordered the forcible drugging of patients who argued with her or were noisy, disruptive or inconvenient to deal with.
Continue reading →

A nursing home in Lemon Grove has been cited and fined $80,000 by the state for failing to properly supervise a 74-year-old woman who caught fire last year while smoking at the facility and later died of burn injuries. The “AA” citation against Lemon Grove Care & Rehabilitation Center is the most severe under California law and was issued by the California Department of Health, which inspects nursing homes for code compliance. Our source for this blog was this news report in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The 158-bed nursing home has apparently received two minor citations last year and one in 2005, all with fines of $1,000 or less. The nursing home’s administrators have said they plan to challenge the AA citation and penalty in California Superior Court. They are also denying that they did anything wrong that contributed to the resident’s injury or death.

The state’s report says that no staff members were monitoring the woman and two other residents as they smoked on March 31, 2008 in the facility’s gazebo. The woman, who was seated in an electric scooter, pulled a nylon jacket over her head to block the wind as she lit her cigarette. The jacket caught fire and burned her head, chest and arms, the report states. She died of the San Diego nursing home burn injuries 10 days after this incident. The woman, who apparently suffered from memory loss, had lived at that Lemon Grove nursing home for more than a year. She smoked everyday, but needed to be reminded constantly to smoke only in designated areas.
Continue reading →

A nursing home in Auburn, California, has been slapped with the most severe citation for negligence and inadequate care that apparently led to the death of a patient in 2007, according to the Sacramento Bee news report. Colonial Healthcare, which is owned by Rocklin-based Horizon West Healthcare, must pay a $100,000 fine for failing to properly care for an 83-year-old resident who fell and broke several ribs.

According to the California Department of Public Health, the man died after suffering “excruciating, unrelieved pain” for 21 hours and then being given an excessive dose of narcotic pain medication. This is apparently the third time the state agency has issued an AA citation against this particular facility since 2007.

My heart goes out to the family of this Auburn nursing home patient. Here is a family that entrusted their loved one to the care of a facility that they believed was professionally equipped to provide quality care. Such an incident is a definite breach of that family’s trust. There is no excuse for it. It is disturbing, appalling and despicable that a nursing home would neglect a vulnerable, elderly patient to this extent.
Continue reading →

Los Angeles County supervisors have asked state officials to require California’s nursing homes to prominently post their new federal star ratings, just the way Los Angeles County restaurants display their letter grades. According to this news report in the Los Angeles Times, this proposal is not being supported by patient advocates and nursing home officials, who say that the new federal five-star rating is flawed because it overlooks significant violations and sometimes, even penalizes well-run nursing homes.

California apparently has 1,254 federally rated nursing homes, more than any other state. Out of those, 272 nursing homes received the “one-star rating,” which is the lowest and 148 received five stars, the highest rating. Los Angeles County supervisors have unanimously voted to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state health department officials to support their plan. The proposal also states that nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medi-Cal should display information about their federal rating in any admissions agreements for new patients. Supervisors also voted to link Los Angeles County’s Web site to the federal rating site, Nursing Home Compare.

The ratings were first issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in December after patients and advocates complained that information about nursing homes on their Web site was far from user-friendly. The ratings were based on three years of data gleaned from state inspections and reports provided by nursing homes. The facilities are rated based on, among others, how the nursing home responds to residents’ declining mobility, high-risk bedsores and pain.
Continue reading →

A recent Bush administration change in federal rules on nursing home inspections makes it near impossible for the public to get information about nursing home violations and complaints about nursing home abuse and negligence. According to this news report, this new federal rule restricts release of detailed nursing home inspection information if officials say they are administrative and have no significant public impact.

This new rule was apparently put into effect in October with little notice and without a public comment period. It is not surprising that consumer advocates are sharply criticizing the administration for closing the door on such crucial information.
Officials of the Department of Health and Human Services say their employees have been too burdened by requests for information. Under the rule change, state employees who inspect nursing homes for the federal government are reclassified as federal employees and are not allowed to provide “privileged” information of documents to the public without approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Continue reading →

A new Web site launched by the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services on December 18, 2008 will help consumers evaluate nursing home care. According to this news report in the Bakersfield Californian, the agency will launch a Five Star Quality Rating System on its Nursing Home Compare Web site.

This Web site apparently already provides beneficiaries of Medicare with comparison information on 17,000 nursing homes nationwide. But this new online rating tool will utilize federal data to score each nursing home’s performance and competence in three important areas: health inspections, staffing and quality measures. The best nursing homes will receive a “five-star” rating while the worst nursing homes will receive a “one-star” rating.
Continue reading →

A 35-year-old male nursing assistant has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting two women in his care at Anaheim Terrace Care Center in the 100 block of South Knott Avenue. One of Alejandro Arias’ victims is 84 years old and the other 60, The Orange County Register reports. Both the victims alleged that Arias groped them and then forced them to touch him inappropriately.

Officials say Arias may have worked at another elder care facility in Orange County before he began working for Anaheim Terrace Care Center. He has apparently been a certified nursing assistant for the last two years. Administrators at Anaheim Terrace reported the allegations to police. Arias has been charged with three felony counts of sexual battery on an institutionalized victim and numerous other misdemeanor counts. Police investigators are still looking for others who may have been abused or victimized by Arias. If you have any information, please call Detective Omar Adham at 714-765-1623.

My heart goes out to both the victims and their families. These were vulnerable nursing home residents who could not care for themselves. They were dependent on this nursing assistant to tend to their basic needs and he apparently took advantage of it. Despicable!
Continue reading →

Two teenage girls, who worked at a Minnesota nursing home, are being charged with physically, emotionally and sexually abusing elderly Alzheimer’s patients at the facility, according to this shocking MSNBC News report. Brianna Broitzman, 19, and Ashton Larson, 18, allegedly spat in residents’ mouths, poked and grabbed them and at times mocked them until they screamed. Both teenagers worked as part-time nursing aides at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home.

Five other teens, who worked with these two young women, were charged as juveniles for failing to report these incidents. Both Broitzman and Larson have been charged with assault, abuse of a vulnerable adult by a caregiver, abuse of a vulnerable adult with sexual contact, disorderly conduct and failing to report suspected maltreatment – all gross misdemeanors. According to the Minnesota Department of Health’s report, 15 residents with Alzheimer’s or other dementia related disorders were abused at Good Samaritan Society between January 1, 2008 and May 1, 2008.
Continue reading →