Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect

A nursing home in Riverside County was hit with a $100,000 fine after the state deemed the death of an 87-year-old woman, who died of acute peritonitis in June 2006, was due to neglect. The home was also issued a AA citation from the California Department of Public Health, the most severe citation that can be given to a nursing home.

According to reports, The Springs at the Carlotta, a 59-bed nursing home in Palm Desert, the elderly resident had suffered from constipation for 24 days. The nursing facility allegedly knew the woman was suffering from constipation when she entered the facility only weeks before her death, but failed to monitor her condition or her treatment. When she began to vomit on June 22nd, she was sent to the hospital where tests confirmed that her colon had perforated due to the constipation. She developed severe peritonitis and died a week later.

It took more than a year for the Department of Public Health to complete its investigation, and the facility has appealed the fine.

Those of us who sue nursing homes and assisted living facilities for elder abuse and neglect of residents know how hard it is to uncover the evidence needed to meet our burdens of proof (which are higher than the typical case). Whether it’s proving a systemic problem of understaffing, ignoring resident fall risks, or establishing false charting, the victims of abuse or neglect always face tremendous hurdles in proving they were neglected. In reality, it’s usually the family trying to prove the wrongdoing since the victim is frequently dead because of the abuse or neglect.

What we certainly don’t need is nursing home caregivers, through their union representatives, colluding with industry trade groups to lobby against the rights of nursing home residents all in the name of job security and wages. This disturbing article in the San Francisco Weekly suggests that for the Service Employees International Union this might be a goal.

According to the article, the two-million-member SEIU, the country’s largest union, would offer political support for nursing home industry goals of limiting patients’ or families’ right to sue for abuse and neglect in exchange for the right to organize nursing home employees in a number of California nursing facilities. This collaboration has led to a division within union ranks, and a growing dispute between SEIU’s California healthcare affiliate and the national union office.