Pennsylvania Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

According to an article on the StandardSpeaker.com, Carbon County, PA commissioners announced that they have signed a letter of intent to sell the county-owned Weatherwood Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center to Guardian Health Care of Jefferson County.

The sale is expected to be closed on July 1. Once negotiations on the sales contract are completed, the terms of the deal, including the sale price, will be disclosed.

Raymond L. Calhoun, chairman of the board for Guardian, is quoted in the article as saying, “In talking with the county officials, we found we have the same values. We come from a rural area. We thought we were a good fit with Weatherwood, with the way we are used to doing business.”

On March 17, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that $5 million in punitive damages was awarded to the widow of a man who suffered fatal bedsores stemming from care he received in Jeanes Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia and the Hillcrest Convalescent Home in Wyncote.

According to the article, the elderly man was admitted to Jeanes in May of 2006 after it was thought that he suffered a stroke. A urinary tract infection, undiagnosed by doctors, became worse and left the man susceptible to bedsores.

After about a week at Jeanes, the man was transferred to Hillcrest where he stayed for two weeks. When his condition worsened, he was sent back to Jeanes. He was released to go home from Jeanes after three days.

According to an update on 6ABC.com, Adelphia Personal Care Home in West Philadelphia has been shut down. Residents and medical equipment were removed after the PA State Dept. of Public Welfare stated that conditions in the home posed “an immediate and serious danger to the lives and health” of the residents. To read the full article, click on the link below:

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7324327

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According to an article on the News-Sentinel.com, the Indianapolis Star made some startling discoveries when it reported that 35 out of 52 of Indiana’s for-profit nursing home chains rank as the state’s most poorly performing homes.

The Star analyzed documents and data compiled by regulators and found that many of Indiana’s nursing homes employ fewer critical staff members than are needed to care for residents and that staffing levels are low at for-profit nursing homes.

In August, federal officials said the state has the most poor-quality nursing homes of any state in the U.S. The investigation by the Star showed that the number of most critical caregivers is low in Indiana nursing homes and that the amount of time certified nursing assistants (CNAs)spend with residents is also low. The Star also found that understaffing is the norm in many Indiana nursing homes where CNAs spend less than 15 hours a week with each resident, compared to the national average of 17 hours a week.

The Boston Globe recently reported that 28 percent of Massachusetts nursing home residents were given antipsychotic medication in 2009, according to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. However, of that group, more than one out of every five did not have a medical condition that warranted the use of antipsychotic medication.

According to the article, drugs are often given to patients with dementia. But these drugs put them at risk for serious side effects, including death.

An official representing Massachusetts nursing homes has agreed that the number is high and acknowledges that more training is needed.

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According to EchoPress.com, of Alexandria, MN, the Minnesota Department of Health reported that three Minnesota nursing home residents were neglected when they were given the wrong medication, leading to the death of one resident.

A report released by the Department of Health on the incidents at Fair Oaks Lodge in Wadena noted, “the preponderance of the evidence indicated that neglect did occur when medications were given in error.” The report also stated that other “significant medical errors” were made during that time.

On June 1, 2009, a resident who was admitted to Fair Oaks due to advancing Alzheimer’s disease was given medication meant for another patient. The Fair Oaks employee realized the error about 10 minutes later and notified the hospital emergency department physician. The resident died on June 7.

On June 12, 2009, a second resident was given medication meant for another patient. That resident was taken to the emergency room and did recover.
A third case occurred when a resident was given medication too close together. The resident was taken to the hospital’s emergency room and also recovered.

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The Times-Tribune.com reported that according to county commissioners, there are no obstacles to closing the sale of the Lackawanna County Health Care Center to Millennium Management of Miami, FL.

The sale was made public in March 2009 as a way to help the county’s deficit without tax increases or layoffs. However, commissioners have called the sale is the largest reduction of county government in history. More than 320 people, about 20 percent of county government, work at the nursing home.

“And the unique thing about this downsizing is we’re not talking about laying people off. We’re moving people off the public payroll and into the private sector,” said commissioner Mike Washo.

On Feb. 18, the Schuylkill Elder Abuse Prevention Alliance held a training session at St. Clare of Assisi in Saint Clair. The purpose of the training session, that was attended by about a dozen local clergy members, was to help make the local clergy aware of resources for investigating reports of elder abuse.

In an article on the RepublicanHerald.com, Eileen Barlow, an alliance member and ombudsman for MidPenn Legal Services, said elder abuse can include financial exploitation and neglect, in addition to physical and emotional abuse.

“If suddenly Mary Smith isn’t in church, and you know Mary Smith was always at church a couple of times a week…that individual may not leave their home at all,” said Barlow.

McKnight’s Long-Term Care News reported on their website that on March 1, a federal database of potentially dangerous caregivers would become available to healthcare providers. However, it’s been reported that many disciplinary records are missing from it.

The database consists of records from various state agencies as a way to identify dangerous caregivers before they can get healthcare jobs in different states. But when the information in the federal database was compared to information on state websites, discrepancies were discovered. It was found that some states only filed reports occasionally; that many missing disciplinary actions against workers occurred within the last few years; and that some states filed incomplete records.

Because healthcare workers can be license in multiple states, background checks can be difficult to conduct. The article also mentioned that many state licensing agencies are reluctant to share information. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, has sent a letter to the nation’s governors asking for assistance in filling in the missing information.

In January, we blogged that Carbon County’s board of commissioners was putting the county-owned Weatherwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center up for sale. Now, a recent article on StandardSpeaker.com points out a pattern of unloading county-owned nursing homes as a way of reducing budget woes.

According to the article, 50 Pennsylvania counties once operated nursing homes; but that number has decreased to 31. Lackawanna County will close on the sale of the Lackawanna County Health Care Center in Olyphant on March 1. And Luzerne County began leasing its former nursing home, Valley Crest in Plains Township, to an outside agency back in 2006. However, Schuylkill County’s nursing home, Rest Haven in Schuylkill Haven, will remain in the hands of the county.

Because federal and state reimbursement payments for Medicare and Medicaid have decreased and operating costs continue to rise, county homes are not as financially self-sustainable as they once were. But some question whether the short-term gain is worth it.