$90 million verdict against a Charleston nursing home will stand

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A $90 million verdict against a Charleston nursing home will stand for now after a judge denied the business owner's request for a new trial.

Kanawha County Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib Jr. ruled Wednesday that the verdict appropriately punished Heartland of Charleston's corporate owner, HCR Manor Care, for a history of intentionally short-staffing nursing homes to maximize profit, The Charleston Gazette (http://bit.ly/10Q2srh ) reported Thursday.

Tom Douglas claimed in the lawsuit that his 87-year-old mother died of dehydration and complications stemming from her 19-day stay at Heartland of Charleston in 2009.

Manor Care lawyers raised several claims, including that the damages should have been subject to the state's $500,000 medical malpractice cap. They said they will appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

"This is not a surprise. These rulings are consistent with those made during trial," Heartland lawyer Ben Bailey said in a release. "We believe they are wrong on the facts and wrong on the law."

The verdict was reduced from $91.5 million to $90.5 million soon after the 2011 trial after Zakaib ruled a small portion of the damage award fell under the $500,000 medical malpractice cap.

The lawsuit sparked a bill that is up for final passage Saturday that would place a limit on the amount nursing homes would be forced to pay if sued by placing them under the protections of the 2003 law that placed limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, including a $500,000 cap on non-economic damages.

If passed the law would not apply to the Heartland case. Even if it did, it would not affect the vast majority of the verdict because $80 million was awarded for punitive damages not covered by the legislation.

During her brief stay at the nursing home, the woman suffered head trauma from several falls and was confined to a wheelchair. She formed sores in her mouth that generated dead tissue that doctors had to scrape away with a scalpel, Zakaib wrote in his ruling.

Experts said during the trial that staffers at the nursing home also failed to provide the woman with basic needs, like food and water, which had been a contributing factor in her death.

"It is our hope that this will set an example," Douglas' lawyer, Mike Fuller, said of the verdict. "The community of West Virginia will not accept nursing home residents having to die from dehydration because of a corporation's failure to provide even a cup of water."

Heartland officials have said that the woman's death was a result of dementia, which is the stated cause of death on her death certificate. They also pointed out that she died 18 days after leaving Heartland.

Heartland had a history of violations, including temporarily losing its Medicare and Medicaid funding in 2011 after state inspectors found dozens of violations. In one instance, nurses' aides failed to assess a demential patient's head wound for several hours.

Zakaib also cited a 2009 survey that found the home was dangerously short-staffed.

One nursing care staffer, Tara Boweles, testified during the trial that conditions in the home were "horrible," saying: "I wouldn't put my dog there." She said patients sometimes would lay in their own urine and feces for hours.

Staff supervisor Beverly Crawford testified that employees feared getting fired for reporting patient neglect.

Zakaib found that short staffing issues arose as the company sought to keep margins high by hiring as few nurses' aides as possible. Tax forms presented at trial listed more than $4 billion in revenue in 2009, including $75 million in outright profit.

"Indeed, to accomplish punishment and deterrence of such a wealthy company, a punitive damage award must be necessarily high," Zakaib said in his ruling. "This verdict sends a clear 'deterrence' message to a multi-billion dollar nursing home corporation that its misconduct will not be tolerated in West Virginia."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Judge-denies-new-trial-in-nursing-home-lawsuit-4429837.php#ixzz2QO3nYZMY

Investigators: Wisconsin’s worst nursing homes

Some of the worst nursing homes in Wisconsin continue to violate state and federal regulations designed to protect our sickest and most vulnerable seniors. And a FOX6 Investigation shows you where they are, so you can make an informed decision before placing your loved one in a troubled nursing home.
FOX6 Investigators: Wisconsin’s worst nursing homes | FOX6Now.com – Milwaukee News & weather from WITI Television FOX6:
When Richard Witt was a younger man, he had the talent of an Olympic figure skater and the good looks to land any girl. But there was only one girl he wanted. He married Kathy Witt on November 23rd, 1963.
“It was the day after President Kennedy was assassinated,” Richard Witt recalls. “It’s a terrible way to remember that.”They spent the next 44 years raising a family in Hartford, Wisconsin, where Richard was elected mayor in 1983. But politics were never Kathy’s thing. She preferred to be outdoors, interacting with nature and playing with her grandchildren. “It was a good life,” Witt says. The good life got harder when Kathy was diagnosed with cancer in 1990. “The doctors at that time were telling me that she had maybe two weeks to live,” Witt said. But Kathy was a fighter. She survived ovarian cancer. Then brain cancer. Cervical cancer. Spine cancer. And, finally, breast cancer. Five cancers in 18 years and Kathy beat them all. She had fallen from her bed and struck her head on the floor. She was flown to Froedtert Hospital. The next day, Richard made the heart-wrenching decision to remove his wife from life support. “And the nurse came in and said, ‘Mr. Witt she’s gone,’” Witt describes, his voice quivering, tears welling up in his eyes. What happened at Mayville Nursing and Rehabilitation would become the subject of a wrongful death lawsuit and testimony before the Wisconsin Senate. “The alarm did go off on the nurses desk, so she did try to get someone to help her,” Witt said during his testimony in January of 2011. Witt told state lawmakers his wife wasn’t supposed to get up without assistance and a blood pressure check. But when she pressed the nurse call button that day, nobody came. So she tried to get up on her own. “One nurse walking a patient to another room happened to notice her sitting on the edge of her bed, yelled back down the hallway stating that Kathy was sitting on the edge of the bed, and the other nurse said, ‘I’ll get there as soon as I can,’” Witt told the Senators. But by the time staff members got there, Kathy was already on the floor. “Granted you have a lot of patients down these halls, but that is not my problem,” Witt now declares. “That is your problem.” The wrongful death lawsuit was dismissed after an out-of-court settlement, but in the years since Kathy’s death, Mayville Nursing and Rehab has been repeatedly cited by state and federal inspectors for providing residents with poor quality care. A FOX6 investigation found that no other Wisconsin nursing home has been fined more money for health violations the past three years than Mayville.

by Bernard Hamill
Nursing Home Abuse

Nurse fired for reporting Abuse

Nurse Annie O'Malley says she was fired from the MetroHealth Prentiss Center nursing home for reporting what she believed to be abuse inside the facility.
"I don't think Tina or the Prentiss Center wants to have any more bad publicity," OMalley said.
Tina Szatala is the nursing home's chief administrator. O'Malley was referring to her and the series of reports that Investigator Tom Meyer aired in June 2011 regarding the abuse of Esther Piskor, 78, a resident suffering from Alzheimers.
O'Malley says she contacted the state about an incident in September of last year regarding a 90-year-old resident who was alone in her room, screaming and crying for help. The resident needed assistance to go to the bathroom.
O'Malley says when nurses' aides didn't respond, the resident decided to climb out of bed and into a wheelchair.
"The bed was in the high position. 4 rails up. This woman crawled out of bed, which she could have killed herself, getting out of bed," said O'Malley
http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/287284/45/Investigator-Nurse-says-she-was-fired-for-reporting-alleged-abuse


by Bernard Hamill
Nursing Home Abuse

Need for Nursing Home reform

On the lawn of the state Health Department, flanked by the daughters of a 96-year-old woman who was physically abused by two Oklahoma City nursing home aides last year, Wes Bledsoe said the department should amp up its inspections and investigations process immediately.

Eryetha Mayberry sat in a wheelchair and suffered from dementia when two nurses aides at Quail Creek Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center were arrested on abuse complaints last April.
Mayberry's daughters set up a hidden video camera after they noticed some of their mom's personal items missing. But instead of catching a thief, the tape revealed two women pushing the women's mother and gagging her with gloved hands.
One of the women, Lucy Gakunga, 24, is now serving a prison sentence at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud. Her co-defendant, Caroline Kaseke, 29, has not been convicted and remains at large.
Bledsoe said it is unconscionable that the state Health Department is not investigating the nursing home and said it reflects the department's attitude about this type of abuse.
He said the department cited only six of the state's 300-plus nursing homes for failing to protect residents from abuse in the past 31/2 years, despite 57 such citations in the 31/2 years before that.
“That, to me, is scandalous,” Bledsoe said.

The state investigated more than 1,240 complaints at nursing homes last year alone, and cited 1,000 of them for deficiencies, Huser said.
Twenty citations have been issued against nursing homes since May 2009 for failure to protect residents from abuse.
http://newsok.com/daughters-of-abused-nursing-home-patient-call-for-reform-in-oklahoma/article/3763498

by Bernard Hamill
Nursing Home Abuse

Negligent Nursing Homes Grab 5 Billion Tax Dollars in One Year

 If members of both polital parties bothered to read a report released last week by the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, they might find some common ground in saving American taxpayers money on Medicare.

The Inspector General report reveals that in 2009 nursing home conglomerates bilked U.S. taxpayers to the tune of more than $5 billion for care that by all legal definitions was substandard at best, negligent at worst. A full 37 percent of nursing homes across America receiving Medicade reimbursements did not meet plan-of-care standards for residents

Negligent Nursing Homes Grab 5 Billion Tax Dollars in One Year:

by Bernard Hamill
Nursing Home Abuse

MRSA rampant in Southern California nursing homes, caused by understaffing

A new study shows a super bug is rampant in nursing homes.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is a staph infection that is resistant to several common antibiotics.

The germ was found in 20 of the 22 Southern California nursing homes examined in the study.

The nursing homes agreed to be in the study only if their names weren't released.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, swabbed the noses of nursing home residents between October 2008 and May 2011.

The study's lead researcher said these facilities need more nursing home infection control interventions.

Marian Hollingsworth told Team 10 she saw how quickly a loved one can contract MRSA.

Her father contracted MRSA after just a day inside a San Diego nursing home. A nurse called and told her about the infection.

"I found out later that by law, a doctor was supposed to call and inform us of the infection and we were supposed to get information on how to limit the spread and we never did," Hollingsworth said.

MRSA is spread through contact -- either by touching someone with the germ or touching an object with it.

"He was kept near the front desk in a wheelchair a lot. So everyone who went in and out of the facility was exposed to him," said Hollingsworth.

10News - MRSA rampant in Southern California nursing homes, says new study - 10News.com - News

by Bernard Hamill
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Nursing home giant guilty in wrongful death suit - Understaffing and cost cutting

A Sacramento Superior Court jury has returned verdicts of wrongful death and elder abuse against the nation's largest assisted living company.
The Sacramento Bee reports ( http://bit.ly/15wNTw4) the trial now enters the punitive-damages phase for Emeritus Corp, a Seattle-based company with annual revenue of $1 billion.
A suit was filed on behalf of Joan Boice, an 82-year-old resident with Alzheimer's disease who died shortly after leaving an Emeritus facility in Auburn five years ago. When she left, the newspaper says, Boice had at least four major bedsores that were listed as significant factors in her cause of death.
Plaintiffs attorneys argued that understaffing and lack of training represented a strategy on Emeritus' part to cut costs.
An Emeritus spokesperson says the company stands behind the quality of care it provides.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/06/5240403/nursing-home-giant by Bernard Hamill
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Nursing home giant guilty in wrongful death suit - AP State News - The Sacramento Bee

by Bernard Hamill

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Need for Full Time Nursing Home Dr's

Jonathan M. Evans is a geriatric physician. A firm believer in onsite physicians at nursing homes, he explained, “The thing that matters most is being there – being there for patients when they're sick; being there for families when they're in need; being there for staff to provide support and ongoing education. You can't be part of a team if you're not present.”

Should the nursing home physician communicate directly with patients and family members rather than through the staff? Evans’ answer is -- “Why the hell not?”

Evans pointed out, "A doctor should always communicate with a patient directly unless a patient is not able to make medical decisions and has a medical proxy to guard confidentiality.” In the absence of a full-time physician, dementia patients are at a disadvantage. The doctor reads charts, talks to staff, talks to patient, but fails to communicate with family.
If a physician talks with family rather than just reading charts, patients can be helped more effectively. In the absence of a full time physician, there is a disconnect.
http://newamericamedia.org/2013/03/full-time-nursing-home-docs-should-be-mandatory.php

by Bernard Hamill 
Nursing Home Abuse

Ct Nursing home residents called 'monkeys,' left hungry

A Litchfield nursing home has been ordered to hire a new manager, improve resident care and pay a $2,000 fine after findings that administrators left residents hungry, denied them information about their personal finances and openly referred to them as "monkeys."
Multiple residents of Fernwood Rest Home Inc., a 68-bed facility, told inspectors from the state Department of Public Health that administrators would tell them they had to "go shopping to feed the monkeys," a state DPH report says.
A staff member of the nursing home confirmed complaints from residents that administrators would put a chain across the dining room door while the staff was making a "gourmet breakfast for themselves," and would instruct staff members to "keep the monkeys out" of the room while they were eating.

Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/State-Rest-home-residents-called-monkeys-left-4337142.php#ixzz2NBerE0oz

Lawsuit filed against nursing home for an alleged sexual assault

A lawsuit has been filed against at Watertown CT. nursing home after one of the patients was allegedly sexually assaulted.
The woman died a few weeks after the incident and her family is now hoping to get enough money to cover funeral costs.
While the criminal investigation remains open, a family member of the alleged victim, a woman now deceased, has filed a civil suit.
The complaint claims that around July 17, 2010, an elderly woman who lived at the Apple Rehab Bunker Hill facility in Watertown, was sexually assaulted by an unidentified person.
The attack supposedly happened in her bedroom, but does not specify if the suspect was an employee, guest, or another resident.
The family argues there was "negligence and carelessness" by Apple Health Care.

In this complaint, a family member of the victim claims the nursing home or rehab facility failed to protect the victim from sexual assault, failed to provide adequate security, and failed to report the assault to family members as well as police.
But a spokesperson for Apple Health care says, "Apple Rehab's policy includes a full investigation into the facts and findings and continues to commit full resources to uncover the facts which continue to unfold."
Meanwhile, the family is asking for Apple Health care to pay more than $15,000 to cover the costs of medical and funeral costs. The family claims because of the reported incident here, the woman suffered a fear of sexually transmitted diseases, conscious pain and suffering, severe emotional distress and eventually death.
The criminal investigation to this is ongoing by the Watertown Police Department and the civil litigation will be held at Waterbury Superior Court.
http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/crime/lawsuit-filed-against-nursing-home-for-an-alleged-sexual-assault#.URpzZKVEGuI

by Bernard Hamill 

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Judge rejects mistrial claim in Sacramento elder abuse trial

The judge rejected an effort Friday by lawyers for Emeritus Corp. to call off the Sacramento civil trial where the survivors of an Alzheimer's resident are suing the assisted living giant for elder abuse and wrongful death.
Emeritus attorneys wanted a mistrial on grounds that plaintiffs lawyer Lesley Ann Clement improperly contacted several current and former company employees – and "coerced" one of them – to influence their testimony.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Judy Holzer Hersher turned back the motion, as well as an Emeritus attempt to disqualify Clement from the case, in a tentative ruling she released Thursday.
Hersher confirmed her ruling Friday, telling the Emeritus lawyers who continued to push for the mistrial and the disqualification, "I frankly have not heard anything today that changes my mind about these circumstances."
Outside court, the attorney who represented Clement called the Emeritus action "frivolous" and "a smear campaign." The attorney, Jim Murphy, said the defense action filed Jan. 25 suggests they believe they are losing the trial.
"Desperate times require desperate measures, and this was a desperate measure by a desperate party – I think they can read the tea leaves," said Murphy, a San Francisco lawyer who specializes in representing embattled attorneys and judges. "The testimony is not going well for them. http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/16/5194796/judge-rejects-mistrial-claim-in.html

by Bernard Hamill 

Massachusetts Nursing Homes Cited for Violations

Over the past three years, Massachusetts nursing home inspectors acting on behalf of the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services found 27 elder care deficiencies at a long-term care facility in Tewksbury and penalized the home with $13,000 in fines. Eight miles away, a nursing home in Wilmington was found to have six deficiencies and fined $117,160, the highest civil monetary penalty CMS levied in Massachusetts during that time period. The difference in the strictness of sanctions is the severity of the deficiencies. Woodbriar of Wilmington was penalized when a patient died of drug toxicity after a medication dosage error. At Blaire House of Tewksbury, none of the deficiencies was categorized as serious. CMS classifies deficiencies as serious if they harm a patient or put a patient in immediate jeopardy. Nursing homes with serious deficiencies are fined, but a review of inspection surveys in a database created by investigative journalism group ProPublica shows that less severe citations can pile up without penalties being imposed. In Greater Lowell, CMS has reports for the 27 facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid, putting them under the agency's jurisdiction. Of these 27 nursing homes, four have been found deficiency-free: Life Care Center of Acton, Littleton's Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley, Seven Hills Pediatric Center in Groton, and Lowell's D'Youville Transitional Care, the short-term rehabilitation facility affiliated with D'Youville Senior Care.

Read more: http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_22609556/widely-varying-sanctions-at-area-nursing-homes#ixzz2LBgVs2tc

by Bernard Hamill 
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Union battling nursing homes places Globe ad highlighting HealthBridge’s antipsychotic track record

Union battling nursing homes places Globe ad highlighting HealthBridge’s antipsychotic track record:

In bold, bright red lettering, a full-page advertisement in December 2012 Boston Globe warns readers that elderly nursing homes residents in three HealthBridge Management-owned Massachusetts facilities are given antipsychotic drugs at rates much higher than the national average -- despite federal warnings about lethal side effects from the powerful sedatives.
The ad was paid for by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a union that represents thousands of workers in five states, including Massachusetts, and is affiliated with a labor group battling Healthbridge in six Connecticut nursing homes.
The ads detail the high rates of antipsychotic use at Holyoke Rehabilitation Center; Lowell Health Care Center; and Newton Health Care Center -- measured by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that regulates nursing homes.
The latest CMS data show that roughly 75 percent of residents at Holyoke Rehabilitation Center who do not have a medical condition that would warrant use of antipsychotics are receiving the drugs. At the Lowell facility, the rate is 64 percent, and in Newton it is 38 %
Earlier in 2012, a Globe series found that antipsychotic overuse is prevalent in many of the nation’s 15,600 nursing homes, and that rates are considerably higher in Massachusetts.
http://bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2012/12/18/union-battling-nursing-homes-places-globe-highlighting-healthbridge-antipsychotic-track-record/kJPoegAyrCYOoAvJf0JuWN/story.html


by Bernard Hamill

High fines for nursing North Carolina homes

State and federal nursing home regulators have imposed some of North Carolina’s heftier fines on Triad nursing homes during the past several years, including a High Point nursing home hit with a pair of penalties totaling $372,970.

The region is home to 11 skilled-nursing facilities where government inspectors found “serious deficiencies” in patient care or nursing home accommodations, according to information compiled from Medicare files by the ProPublica nonprofit journalism group.

News & Record : High fines for nursing homes

by Bernard Hamill

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Chronic underfunding means short staffing for Maine nursing homes

Staffing Levels can affect the quality of nursing home care. That is why proper funding is crucial to long term care residents in nursing homes. 107 nursing homes in Maine are continuing to deal with chronic underfunding from the state according to a recent article. Over the past five years, the nursing homes have been underfunded by $122 million in state and federal funds, and some places run an average of $340,000 short every year, according to the Maine Health Care Association, a trade group that represents most nursing homes in Maine.
The payments fall short because they are based on a 2005 formula, so even as utility and other costs have gone up, the payments have not. "I've had to cut back on the night shift," one nursing home employee said. "I don't have an afternoon-evening receptionist. We don't do any overtime."

Chronic underfunding means short staffing for Maine nursing homes | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram


by Bernard Hamill

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