Southern California Elder Abuse

November 24, 2009

California Nurses Face Tough New Standards

The State of California has announced that healthcare providers, namely nurses, that have abused drugs will face more stringent guidelines to maintain their licenses. After treatment, the nurses will be required to pay for regular drug testing. After a negative test, the nurse will be able to return to work, but during the first year, will be required to undergo 104 drug tests. The new guidelines state that a single failure of a drug test will result in an immediate suspension of the nursing license. In addition, the state will be permitted to publically identify nurses who are being subject to this increased supervision.

These new regulations follow an L.A. Times investigation earlier this year (and blogged about here) that found several problems in the licensing, certification, and regulation of California nurses. In that investigation, it was revealed that numerous nurses with documented drug problems were allowed to continue working without consequence, and that nursing complaints were taking years to resolve.

The new regulations can be found here.

November 5, 2009

Ombudsman Program Not Effectively Addressing Elder Abuse Complaints

by Walton Law Firm

In a strongly worded report, the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes recommended major reforms to the California long-term care ombudsman program. The responsibility of the Ombudsman program is to investigate and resolve complaints made by individual residents in nursing homes.

According to the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), nursing home and assisted living facility residents in California at an increasing risk of elder abuse because ombudsman funding has been severely cut and the state ombudsman office has established unreasonable restrictions on ombudsman reporting of abuse.

The state report, entitled California’s Elder Abuse Investigators: Ombudsman Shackled by Conflicting Laws and Duties, revealed that ombudsman complaint referrals to the nursing home licensing agency dropped by a stunning 44 percent in the last year after the Governor Schwarzenegger slashed funding to the fledgling ombudsman program. Assisted living facilities have been affected as well. During the same period, complaints by ombudsman to California’s Community Care Licensing regarding assisted living and residential care facilities also dropped by more than 40 percent.

October 29, 2009

Psychotropic Drugs: What You Should Know.

by Walton Law Firm

The Chicago Tribune recently published a brief article called 5 Things to Know about Psychotropics, which I thought I would pass along to you. Here are the five things:

Your rights: A nursing facility cannot administer a psychotropic drug without a physician’s order, which by law requires informed consent and a legitimate diagnosis. The standard of care requires that nursing staff must first try to calm patients, and other possible causes of agitation must be ruled out, such as infection.

The consent: Before psyschtropics can be used consent must be obtained by the “responsible party” of the resident, usually the person with power of attorney. The consent must be in writing.

September 28, 2009

Uninsured Nursing Homes a Growing Problem

by Randall Walton

In the 10 years since I took my first case against a nursing home for elder abuse, I have seen a growing number of homes going without liability insurance. While the uninsured problem used to be confined to the small mom-and-pop assisted living facilities with 6 to 12 beds, now I am seeing in large, institutional-type skilled nursing facilities. On Friday, the Oakland Tribune did an excellent article on this problem.

The article profiles the story of 39-year-old Grover Brown, a multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s patient with paraplegia. Brown was a resident of High Street Care Center in East Oakland. High Street is owned by Trinity Health Systems, whose president, Randal Kleis, has operated about a dozen facilities all over California under several corporate names.

While in the care of High Street, Brown developed a pressure ulcer on his coccyx, which, due to neglect, worsened to the point that doctors were required to remove his tailbone to curtail the deep infection. Brown and his family hired an elder abuse attorney, who sued High Street for abuse and neglect under California’s elder abuse laws, which also protect “dependent adults” like Brown.

August 14, 2009

San Bernardino Nursing Home Fined After Resident Suicide

by Walton Law Firm

The Del Rosa Villa nursing home in San Bernardino received the state’s harshest citation after investigators concluded that inadequate care led to a resident’s suicide. The California Department of Public Health issued a AA citation and a fine of $90,000.

According to reports, on June 11, 2009 a 52-year-old resident was found hanging from a fence in the parking lot of the nursing home. He apparently had rolled his wheelchair through a back entrance to the nursing home and into parking lot where he hung himself with a belt

The man’s care plan, which all skilled nursing facilities must maintain for patients, required that he be under suicide watch at all times, and that a nursing assistant admitted to investigators that she made a mistake. It was not the man’s first attempt at suicide. He was in the facility from an acute care hospital where he was admitted after throwing himself in front of a moving vehicle.

August 13, 2009

Elder Abuse Can Happen Anywhere, Anytime, by Anyone

by Walton Law Firm

The North County Times had a good column on the cold reality that elder abuse or neglect can happen anywhere. Susan Reichel, CEO of Advanced Home Health Services in San Diego says that an estimated 2 million elderly Americans are victims of elder abuse, whether its physical, mental, emotional, or financial, and it can occur in the home or at a nursing facility.

We, of course, know this. At this law firm, we take legal action against nursing homes and residential care facilities for abuse or neglect all the time. But it’s always worth reminding people that such abuse cases are real and all around us. Remarkably, it is estimated that 84 percent of elder abuse cases go unreported.

The author makes a list of clues to look out for that might be signs of abuse or neglect, and we though it would be helpful to list them here.