Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect

June 17, 2016

New Report on Elder Abuse Prevention

Given that the elderly population of Southern California continues to grow, we need to invest time and effort into preventing elder abuse and nursing home abuse, according to a recent article in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. While we continue to discuss the problem of elder abuse in our country and to engage in awareness-raising efforts, elder abuse and neglect remains a problem—and in some areas, the problem is getting bigger. Skilled nursing facilities and other long-term care facilities for the elderly need to do more to prevent elder abuse and neglect.

Placing the Burden on Nursing Home Directors to Properly Train Staff

As the article explains, statistics tell us that around 10% of America’s seniors become victims of elder abuse, “but that statistic alone does not come close to telling the full story of the epidemic.” The article underscores, “for every incident of abuse that does get reported, an estimated 22 do not.” What that fact means is that a majority of elderly Americans are suffering from elder neglect and nursing home abuse, and in many of those cases, the violence goes unreported. What can we do to prevent this kind of abuse? According to the article, much of the impetus is on “nursing home leaders who want to prevent abuse before it happens” by “focus[ing] on training their staff in skills that reduce interpersonal tension and stress.”

June 3, 2016

“Difficult” Nursing Home Patients Targeted for Eviction

by Walton Law Firm

When an elderly California resident requires care in a nursing home, it is often because he or she can no longer live at home and requires more care than a place such as a residential care facility for the elderly (RCFE) or assisted-living facility might be able to provide. However, according to a recent article from the Associated Press, nursing home patients who are more challenging and for whom it is more difficult for staff members to provide care are being targeted for eviction. The topic of nursing home evictions and elder abuse has been an issue for several months now, with advocates arguing that nursing homes and other facilities are refusing to readmit patients following hospital stays. For example, an NPR report emphasized the severity of these allegations and the implications for senior health and well-being.

Yet now, according to an analysis conducted by the Associated Press, it looks as though patients at skilled nursing facilities who require more extended care than other patients may also be subject to wrongful evictions. When elderly patients who need nursing home care are evicted without warning and for reasons beyond the resident’s control, are we looking at situations of nursing home abuse?

Seniors with Dementia Alleged to be Targeted by Skilled Nursing Facilities

May 27, 2016

For-Profit Nursing Homes and California’s Public Health Funding

by Walton Law Firm

Many of us with elderly loved ones who have spent hours and days investigating nursing homes and assisted-living facilities know that most for-profit facilities are not providing the quality of care that most of us seek. An article in Bloomberg emphasized that “for-profit nursing homes lead in overcharging while care suffers.” A number of the facilities profiled in that article had settled wrongful death lawsuits in recent years or had otherwise faced allegations of nursing home abuse and neglect resulting in the serious injuries and deaths of patients.

Why should California residents focus on the problems that have been linked to for-profit facilities? According to a recent press release from the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a bill that just passed the Assembly Health Committee without any opposition “would open up two very important public and non-profit health financing mechanisms to for-profit nursing home corporations.”

Risks of Public Funding Usage at For-Profit Nursing Homes

May 13, 2016

Allegations of Abuse and Neglect at Stockton Facility

by Walton Law Firm

One of the largest nursing homes in Stockton, CA is facing numerous allegations of nursing home abuse and neglect, according to a recent article from Recordnet.com. Reports from patients and their families allege lack of privacy, physical abuse, and serious neglect at Wagner Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. What else do you need to know about these allegations? Can they help families to understand the importance of researching a nursing home or assisted-living facility before allowing an elderly loved one to become a resident at a facility without the best patient ratings?

Serious Citations at Wagner Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

Based on data provided by California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), Wagner “has been issued the greatest number of serious citations going back to 2010 . . . of any skilled nursing home in Stockton.” Over the last six years, it has received six serious citations. Why were those citations issued? According to the article, the following represent some of the most serious fines levied against Wagner Heights:

April 8, 2016

Reexamining California’s Nursing Home Quality

by Walton Law Firm

Over the last couple of years, the quality of care in California nursing homes and assisted-living facilities—in effect, the salient instances of nursing home abuse—has received national attention. Back in 2013, a special report from U-T San Diego discussed the “Deadly Neglect” happening at facilities across the state. That report highlighted the need for elder safety advocates, local and national agencies, and state and federal lawmakers to take steps to ensure that the very vulnerable population of elder residents across the country begins receiving proper care. But have legislators done enough? Are California nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) taking steps to change the harmful practices that resulted in elder abuse and neglect?

According to a recent report in California Newswire, newly proposed legislation in our state suggests that, when it comes to nursing home quality in California, facilities continue to fall short. The bill (AB 2079) aims to improve patient safety at facilities throughout the state and to protect California taxpayers.

California Legislators Aim to Improve Patient Safety

March 18, 2016

Nursing Home Evictions and Elder Abuse in California

by Walton Law Firm

If you live in a nursing home, do you have the same rights as a tenant who rents a home from a landlord? According to a recent report from NPR, numerous nursing home residents who live the facility for a temporary inpatient hospital visit return to the nursing home only to learn that they have been evicted. As the article makes clear, this pattern results each year in thousands of nursing home residents finding themselves without a place to live, and that often leads to less-than-ideal situations that can involve elder abuse. Currently, federal law protects nursing home residents from these kinds of evictions, but as the article underscores, “those rules are rarely enforced by the states.” As such, California nursing home residents have decided to file claims against the state of California.

Plaintiffs File Claims Over Nursing Home Evictions

According to the NPR report, when nursing home residents cannot return to their rooms at the nursing facility, they are left with very expensive hospital bills and often the inability to receive the specific kind of care provided in a nursing home. For instance, one plaintiff who was evicted from his nursing home is currently living in his hospital room at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento. At the end of May 2015, his nursing home sent him to the hospital to receive treatment for pneumonia. However, once the pneumonia had been treated, the nursing home would not readmit him. As such, he has been living at the hospital for about 260 days now. The financial costs are very high: Medicaid is paying “about 2.5 times what his nursing home cost.”

March 12, 2016

Can Nursing Home Cameras Actually Prevent Abuse?

by Walton Law Firm

California and a number of other states have passed laws that permit nursing homes to install cameras and other electronic recording equipment in the private rooms of patients in order to contend with nursing home abuse allegations. These cameras are not intended to invade a resident’s privacy, but rather will only be installed upon the request of a resident. Many elder advocates have praised these laws, suggesting that nursing home staff members will be less likely to engage in acts of abuse if they know they will be recorded on camera. However, according to a recent article in the Pacific Standard, such laws may not be getting at the root of the problem. And as such, laws allowing cameras in nursing homes might not be doing enough to combat the issues at the heart of nursing home abuse and neglect cases.

Recordings to Substantiate Claims of Elder Abuse

According to the article, installing cameras in residents’ rooms at nursing homes intervenes in the issue of elder abuse a bit too late in the process. Rather than exploring the reasons that people engage in acts of nursing home abuse, the cameras (and the footage they record) aim to substantiate claims of abuse when they happen. Or, at best, they might discourage an employee from abusing a particular resident who has a camera installed in his or her room.

February 26, 2016

Physicians’ Roles in Protecting Elders from Abuse

by Walton Law Firm

When San Diego seniors sustain injuries as a result of nursing home abuse, physicians often are in a distinct position to recognize the signs of abuse or neglect. Yet healthcare providers do not always identify these symptoms when they see them, and thus patterns of abuse can continue. In a recent article in Emergency Medicine News, one emergency physician in Southern California discusses the limitations of identifying elder abuse and the growing connection between medical malpractice and elder abuse claims.

Difficulty in Obtaining Accurate Patient Histories

Over the last decade, physicians have seen more and more older patients. Given that the number of Americans who are aged 85 and older is growing—and will continue to increase rapidly over the coming decades—more emergency room physicians are seeing elders. But the physician in the article warns that emergency medicine specialists need to be careful to avoid taking shortcuts when it comes to treating elderly patients. While healthcare providers in emergency departments are encouraged to work efficiently, or “faster,” as the author intimates, we need to slow down when seniors come in with injuries that could have been caused from nursing home abuse.

February 12, 2016

Elder Neglect and Unsanitary Living Conditions in Castro Valley

by Walton Law Firm

Nursing home neglect is a serious problem that can result in severe personal injuries to the elderly. Signs of nursing home neglect, according to a fact sheet from the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) and the Administration on Aging (AoA), often include “hazardous or unsafe living conditions,” as well as “unsanitary and unclean living conditions.” A recent article in the Contra Costa Times identifies a former elderly care home in Castro Valley that is currently under investigation by state and county agencies for “cramped and dirty conditions.”

What happened in this elderly care home, and why did it take so long for authorities to learn about potentially hazardous conditions inside?

Filthy Living Conditions and Absentee Caregivers Signal Cause for Alarm

January 29, 2016

Nursing Home Abuse and Social Media

by Walton Law Firm

If you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home or assisted-living facility in the San Diego area, do you need to worry about whether abusive photos of your loved one will end up on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat? According to a recent article in The Washington Post, “posting abusive photos of the elderly on social media” has become an alarming trend in nursing home abuse cases. While most of us would like to believe that technology can only help seniors to have better lives, whether they are living independently or under the care of nursing home staff, the article should put Californians on alert to the emotional and psychological abuse that is happening at nursing homes across the country.

Dehumanizing Photos of Seniors and Emotional Abuse

As the article notes, advocates who work tirelessly to prevent nursing home abuse have identified a disturbing trend when it comes to elder abuse and social media: “nursing home workers across the country are posting embarrassing and dehumanizing photos of elderly residents on social media networks such a Snapchat, violating their privacy, dignity, and sometimes, the law.” Although many of these incidents are only now coming to light, the article intimates that numerous violations of patient privacy—that we know of—occurred back as far as 2012.