elder abuse

May 13, 2016

Allegations of Abuse and Neglect at Stockton Facility

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

April 2, 2016

Link Among Gentrification, Evictions, and Elder Abuse

by Walton Law Firm

When California seniors are evicted from their homes, particularly in regions of the state with ever-increasing rent costs, can those evictions rise to the level of elder abuse? That question has been posed recently in a number of cases in which older adults were evicted from their homes and died shortly thereafter, according to a recent article in the San Francisco Examiner. If a senior dies from the stress of an eviction, can his or her survivors file an elder abuse lawsuit?

How Can Evictions and Gentrification Harm Older Adults?

According to the article, costs of living in various California cities have skyrocketed recently, and it is becoming more and more difficult for seniors to be able to live comfortably in their homes. In large part, commentators cite gentrification as the reason for the rise in living costs in the Bay Area and other parts of California. However, gentrification and growing costs of living become much more serious when they result in the eviction of a senior citizen who cannot afford another place to live. As the article points out, the link among gentrification, eviction, and elder abuse became national news when a 97-year-old woman died earlier this month after being evicted from her home.

March 25, 2016

California’s Recent $1 Million Elder Abuse Settlement

by Walton Law Firm

When patients allege that a nursing home is responsible for injuries caused by elder abuse and neglect, what can they expect to receive in damages if they settle or win a case? According to a recent article in The Press Democrat, a “high-end Santa Rosa nursing home has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a wrongful death and elder abuse lawsuit alleging it allowed a patient to die from complications of a bedsore.” The settlement goes to show that nursing home abuse can happen at any level of facility—even at the most seemingly posh facilities—and elder abuse claims can result in substantial settlements.

To better understand the allegations, we should take a closer look at the case. In the meantime, if you have concerns about an elderly loved one’s safety in a California facility, you should speak with an experienced San Diego nursing home abuse attorney to learn more about filing a claim for compensation.

Brookdale Fountaingrove Nursing Home Agrees to Million Dollar Payout

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.”

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 19, 2016

Need for More Elder Abuse Studies, Researchers Say

by Walton Law Firm

Fact sheets provided by the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) and the Administration on Aging (AoA) emphasize that elder abuse is a common phenomenon, likely affecting at least 10% of seniors in America. Yet those organizations also note that nursing home abuse and neglect are widely underreported, meaning that we do not necessarily have all the facts we need in order to think through new and better ways of combatting nursing home abuse and neglect. According to a recent report from Fox News Health, researchers are voicing similar concerns about the limitations of our current knowledge.

A new research review noted that “maltreatment and abuse have important effects on the health, quality of life, and even on the lifespan of elderly people, but there is very little evidence on ways to stop it.” Recognizing signs and symptoms of nursing home abuse is an important step in putting a stop to abuse. But do we really know the best prevention methods when we may not have a completely accurate picture of the prevalence of elder abuse?

Looking Back at Studies of Elder Maltreatment

February 5, 2016

Physicians Ask: What Provokes Elder Abuse?

by Walton Law Firm

For those of us with elderly loved ones who are currently living in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities, the threat of injuries caused by nursing home abuse is all too real. But what leads staff members at these facilities to perpetrate acts of elder abuse and neglect? Often, as we have noted in previous posts, understaffing at nursing homes frequently results in patients not receiving proper levels of care. But when we think about physical elder abuse, it is more difficult for most San Diego residents to consider explanations.

The possibility of nursing home abuse is abhorrent to us, but it can be difficult to understand why, exactly, it happens. According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, one emergency room physician decided to look more closely into acts and events that prompt elder abuse.

Exploring Causes of Elder Abuse

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.

January 22, 2016

Articles Tagged with elder abuse

Allegations of Abuse and Neglect at Stockton Facility

Reexamining California’s Nursing Home Quality

Link Among Gentrification, Evictions, and Elder Abuse

California’s Recent $1 Million Elder Abuse Settlement

Nursing Home Evictions and Elder Abuse in California

Physicians’ Roles in Protecting Elders from Abuse

Need for More Elder Abuse Studies, Researchers Say

Physicians Ask: What Provokes Elder Abuse?

More Problems in California’s Assisted-Living Facilities