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Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse

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food-safety“Unsafe food handling” was the third most common citation for American nursing homes in 2018 behind “lack of infection prevention and control” and “accidents related to  hazards, lack of supervision or devices” according to data from the from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. From 1998 to 2017, The Center for Disease Control recorded 230 food outbreaks in nursing homes resulting in 54 deaths, 532 hospitalizations and 7648 sickened residents.

33 % of all nursing homes in the nation were cited for food safety violations last year.  Among them, the nation largest chain of nursing homes, Genesis Healthcare had 47% of its nursing homes cited for food safety violations. The chain owns around 400 nursing homes in 27 states.

Unsafe food handling incidents reported at nursing homes all over the country recently included hundred of mouse droppings on the hood of the stove, flies in under-cooked hamburgers, moldy ice machines, mysterious debris in meat slicer and of course numerous complaints of cockroaches invasions and employees not washing their hands before handling food. These unhealthy conditions can potentially sickened and killed fragile nursing home residents.

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When a nursing home is understaffed, patients have a higher risk of getting neglected. Studies show that patients in understaffed nursing homes have a higher risk of  weight loss, malnutrition, dehydration, pneumonia, infections and bedsores. When there is not enough staff, nursing home patients do not get proper attention and as a result neglect and medical errors can occur. Additionally working conditions in understaffed nursing homes are difficult. Nursing homes who are trying to minimize their costs are not hiring as many registered nurses and certified nurse assistants as they should and stretch the existing staff as much as they can. Stressed and overworked workers get frustrated and that’s when nursing home patient abuse has the highest risk to occur.

It is estimated that approximately 90% of nursing homes are understaffed in the US. Many nursing homes do not have any registered nurse available for days. In an effort to crack down on this problem, Medicare recently revised its five stars ranking system and automatically downgraded to one star the staffing ranking section of all nursing homes that do not have a registered nurse on site for four or more days instead of 7 or more days in the previous ranking. As a result 1638 nursing homes in the US now have a one star rating for their staffing.

The change in the staffing comes in the aftermath of a decision by the government last year to require nursing homes to submit payroll records to verify staff level. While analyzing the records, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services became alarmed by the frequency of under staffing of registered nurses. Registered nurses are the most qualified nurses. When staffing level increases so does the quality of care.

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New York State hospitals and especially New York City hospitals and nursing homes are the institutions the most affected in the country by Candida Auris, a dangerous fungal infection resistant to most medications. The disease already killed a patient at Mount Sinai hospital last year and 309 cases have been confirmed in New York and 109 in New Jersey out of a total of 587 for the entire country.

Hospitals that have been contaminated by Candida Auris germs report that it is very difficult to eradicate it in the facility. It takes special cleaning equipment. Sometime tiles have to be ripped of the walls to get rid of the bug.

Candida Auris a hospital superbug invades New York

If  a loved one is in a nursing home or at the hospital ask if they had any cases of Candida Auris

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nursing homeUnderstaffed nursing homes cause patients to be neglected. The most common result is the development of bed sores or broken bones after a fall, both leading to hospitalization.

Until recently, the five star rating system published by the government  to help American families find a nursing home for their loved ones wasn’t  taking the payroll of each facility into account for their ranking. However in 2010, the Affordable Care Act required that Medicare collect and publish payroll data of nursing home instead of having the nursing home reporting their own data to the government.  Medicare found that many nursing homes were reporting numbers exaggerating staffing that were masking significant fluctuation in day-to-day staffing with huge shortfalls during the weekends.

As a result 1,387 of the 15,616 skilled nursing facilities in the country received the lowest rating, one star, for staffing after Medicare recently changed its rating.

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VA nursing homeFor years, the VA has been hiding statistics on the quality of care at its nursing homes because it didn’t want the public to know how bad it was. Recently, pressed by the Boston Globe and US Today the VA finally made its data public and it is scary.

Among the 133 VA nursing homes located all over the US, 60 (almost half of them) received one star out of  five for their quality of care. Pennsylvania has five of these facilities. Texas and California both have four of them. Only two facilities received five stars: Castle Point, NY and Carrollton, GA.

Families had no access to nursing home ranking and information

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Nursing home abuse is not only physical or mental abuse, it can also be financial abuse. Recently, 40-year old Channel Francis, pleaded guilty to identity theft of three residents of Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation in Queens, a nursing home in New York City. She is expected to serve 2 to 4 years in jail. Channel fraudulently obtained the identity of the victims though the help of an unidentified friend who was working at the nursing home.

In 2013, The New York Attorney General received complaints from 3 families of residents at the Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation about unauthorized transactions on the credit cards of their loved ones. After investigation, the Attorney General’s office found out that Channel Francis used the credit cards of the residents to purchase designer handbags and various electronic items such as high definitions TVs and Ipads.  Despite not being an employee at the Queens nursing home, Channel was able to obtain the credit card information through another person who was working there.  Unfortunately the investigation did not determine who the person was.

Financial abuse of nursing home residents shouldn’t be tolerated. If a loved one is a resident at a nursing home, you can prevent financial abuse by regularly checking all financial statements of your loved one.

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NYSTLA will hold a meeting of the Medical Malpractice Committee on April 19th at 6:00 p.m. and should last until 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at NYSTLA Headquarters at 132 Nassau Street Suite 200.

Red Alert!

As you probably know by now, federal legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 1215 would impose severe restrictions on medical malpractice actions and actions against nursing homes throughout the country including a $250,000 cap on awards for non-economic damages as well as other toxic limitations. The bill has already passed committees in the House. It was scheduled to be brought to the House floor on March 29th, 2017, but that has been delayed. It is anticipated, however, that it will still be brought to the floor, and that it has a good chance of passing.

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nursing home abuse“Sick, Dying and Raped in America’s nursing homes” is the title of a new investigation recently released by CNN. According to this investigation, sexual abuse at nursing homes is widespread and little is being done to stop it.

It is very saddening that many elderly that have issues with memory or who can not defend themselves because they are too weak are being sexually abused by the people who are caring for them.  Some of the stories revealed in the CNN investigations are extremely sad, sometimes terrifying. It is very difficult to get an accurate picture of how bad the situation is because predators choose victims with Alzheimer disease who have trouble with their memories or victims who are too terrified to talk. CNN found out that nursing homes are often reluctant to believe sexual abuse accusations or are trying to hide the truth to avoid lawsuits.  Additionally the police often dismiss the claim and blame the victim for being confused. On the top of it repeated caregiver offenders are often able to work in another nursing home after being fired from a previous one. There is a systematic failure to protect victims from sexual assault in nursing homes.

In the CNN investigation a daughter explained how her mother  who flew away from Indonesia to  avoid being sexually abused by Japanese soldiers was raped in her American nursing home at 83 years old. CNN also reports the story of a male nurse who was caught by a colleague raping an 83 year old patient in a nursing home in 2014. The man was sentenced by a judge to 8 years in prison. The nurse apologized to the judge and his attorney asked for leniency. CNN discovered that the man had previously been suspended 3 times from the same nursing home for sexual abuse accusations.  The earliest complaint was made in 2008, 6 years before. The nursing home continued to let the man work  there again despite knowing he was a sexual predator.

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Disabled residents at a NYC group home have been physically abused and neglected for years. A lawsuit file against Union Ave. IRA, a group home in the Bronx alleged that disableD residents were physically abused and neglected dozens of time over the last ten years. The lawsuit was filed by the residents’ guardians in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. One of them claimed in the lawsuit that his sister was raped while living at the group home. The guardians are not only suing the staffers from from the group home but also officials from the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities who are supposed to make sure disabled residents are safe. Read more in the NY Daily News

Union Ave Group Home

Picture: courtesy of Google Map

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nursing homeDisturbing complaints of nursing home abuse through social media has recently prompted federal health regulators to announce plans to crack down on this type of despicable and abusive behavior.

Since 2012 Pro Publica has identified 47 cases of nursing home employees taking demeaning pictures or videos of residents and posting them on social media.  This reprehensible trend was also denounced by the Washington Post last year.

Posting explicit pictures or dehumanizing videos of nursing home residents is a new form of abuse that is very disturbing and needs to be addressed by nursing home facilities and regulators.