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Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against California Nursing Homes

Randy Walton — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:41:41 GMT

A class action lawsuit for substandard nursing home care was filed in Orange County Superior Court against S&F Management Company, Inc.; S&F Management Company, LLC; Windsor Healthcare Management, Inc.; and its 15 skilled nursing care facilities around the state of California.

Stephen Garcia, attorney for the plaintiff, alleges in the complaint that Windsor promotes itself in a misleading way, claiming to provide superior care to the elderly, when in fact that Windsor-owned facilities have a substandard track record.

"The Windsor facilities make great claims, but they don't deliver. In fact, I believe they are an elder abuse case in the making," says Garcia. "We know they aren't providing what they promise -- excellent care -- because the 15 facilities have a long record with the California Department of Health Services of repeatedly receiving citations of deficiencies that found the facilities consistently provided their residents substandard care and violated their rights."

The California nursing facilities named identified in the lawsuit are:

Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of Anaheim
Windsor Palms Care Center of Artesia
Windsor Manor Rehabilitation Center of Concord
Windsor Park Center of Fremont
Windsor Gardens Care Center of Fullerton
Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of Hawthorne
Windsor Gardens Care Center of Hayward
Windsor Convalescent Center of North Long Beach
Windsor Convalescent Center of Long Beach
Windsor Gardens Convalescent Hospital of Los Angeles
Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of San Diego
Windsor Gardens Healthcare Center of North Hollywood
Windsor Gardens Rehabilitation Center of Salina
Windsor Gardens Convalescent & Rehabilitation Center of Golden Hill
Windsor Terrace Healthcare Center

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

Elder Abuse: Woman Dies After Leaving Palomar Heights Care Center

Scott Barber — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:00:03 GMT

A 94 year-old resident of Palomar Heights Care Center in Escondido died early Thanksgiving morning after wandering out of the facility and being struck by a car. To compound matters the resident, Maria Cobian, was wearing a bracelet intended to alert staff if she attempted to leave the facility. According to Escondido Police, the only door the bracelet doesn't trigger an alarm. "Either she went out a door and set off an alarm that wasn't heard or she went out the front," said Escondido Police Officer Mike Garcia. Repoertedly, staff told Ms. Cobian's grandson that they were distracted with another resident at the time. This is not the first time Palomar Heights has been hit with allegations of elder abuse or neglect.

According to an article by the San Diego Union-Tribune, this is not the first time Palomar Heights has been the subject of scrutiny. Last year the facility was hit with a $100,000 fine from the California Department of Health Services after a 66 year-old patient died after being left alone while smoking a cigarrette while connected to an oxygen machine. That resident burned for for six minutes and eventually succumbed to his injuries. In addition, while under previous ownership, the facility was hit by a sting operation by the State Attorney General resulting in the arrests of 12 staff members for elder abuse.

This appears to be yet another sad case in which a nursing home is short-staffed and it is the residents who pay. There should have been enough staff in the facility to take care of the other resident and still have someone watching the front door or listening for alarms.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Scott Barber

Nearly Half of California Nursing Homes Do Not Meet Federal Standards

Randy Walton — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:46:40 GMT

Medicare and Medicaid released a report this week listing nursing homes and hospitals from around the country that have fallen below benchmarks set for patient restraints, bedsores, and surgical infections. Of the 1400 California nursing homes, 674 made the list.

The purpose in releasing the specific nursing homes was to hold accountable the private contractors hired by Medicare and Medicaid to monitor quality standards and health care facilities the receive Medicare payments.

San Francisco-based Lumetra has monitored quality standards at California health care facilities that receive Medicare payments since 1984. Medicare and Medicaid spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said his agency released its facility lists to hold companies such as Lumetra more accountable for the work they do
This list is a tool to manage the quality-improvement organizations," Ashkenaz said. "This is not about facilities. This does not mean these are bad facilities.

It may not mean the facilities are bad, but it clearly means that nursing home residents are being neglected to some degree. Like most standards, the Federal standards are meant to be the minimum standards; the hope being that facilities will not just meet them, but exceed them. The unfortunate reality is that most facilities use the prevailing standards as the standard of care they are to provide, and just barely meet them, when for some residents the minimum standards will not do.

For the names of all San Diego, Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles and San Bernardino nursing facilities that made the list visit Medicare's website.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

California Budget Cuts May Endanger Elderly

Randy Walton — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:53:26 GMT

Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts of the California budget may increase the risk of elder neglect and abuse to the nearly 150,000 elderly residents of nursing and residential care facilities.

According to the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), the proposed cuts will reduce inspections and will further cripple an already struggling program. Moreover, a reduction in the budget of the Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division - which currently is only required to inspected residential facilities once every five years - while assisted living care is growing rapidly is a set up for disaster.

"Inspecting RCFEs once every five years or less is a recipe for neglect and abuse," said Patricia McGinnis, CANHR's executive director. "Care standards and residents' rights become virtually meaningless when inspections are so rare. Issuing a license under these conditions deceives consumers who assume the state is conducting regular inspections or offering oversight and protection to residents."

Currently there are more than 7,500 assisted living facilities for the elderly in California, a 25% increase since 2000. Yet the state inspection system of these facilities, once the model for other states, has continually diminished.

An increase in oversight and enforcement is needed now more than ever. The present oversight system does not ensure the basic care and safety of elderly residents. At the very least, each RCFE should be inspected every two years. Facilities with poor compliance histories should be inspected annually or more often.

For more information contact Pat McGinnis at CANHR, (415) 974-5171.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

Fancy Nursing Home, Shocking Death

Randy Walton — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:32:26 GMT

Because part of my law practice involves representing seniors in nursing homes who have been subjected to abuse or neglect, I am frequently asked for recommendations for a "good" nursing home. I respond that I don't know any. But on the other hand, I tell the person asking, I don't necessarily know the "bad" ones either. One thing I have learned, in cases against fancy chain homes or the mom-and-pops - the price one pays for care is not necessarily indicative of the quality of care one receives.

Take this tragic elder abuse story in Los Angeles County.

When Elmore Kittower's wife placed him an upscale nursing home in Calabasas called Silverado Senior Living it was the first time in their 49 years together that they lived apart. The disabilities Elmore suffered because of a stroke made it too difficult for Rita Kittower to care for her husband at home.

And when Elmore died in the facility approximately two weeks after his 80th birthday, Rita had been told his death was a peaceful one. She believed his death was meant to be. Then she received a jolting phone call the day after Elmore's funeral.

She had bade a tearful goodbye to her mate of 49 years, who had passed away in an exclusive assisted living facility in Calabasas. "He just stopped breathing," Kittower said she was told by a staff member.
A woman claiming to be an employee of the nursing home told Rita that her 80-year-old husband's death had been anything but peaceful. She said Elmore Kittower had been beaten to death by someone on the staff.
"She just couldn't stand what she saw," Rita said. "She had to tell me what happened."
The woman said a staff member had punched Elmore in the eye and wrapped a towel around his head in an apparent attempt to suffocate him.
"I felt like I was going to throw up" Rita recalled. "I said I can't listen to this."
She hung up the phone, but not before getting the woman's number. Rita asked her son to call the woman back. He elicited more details from the caller. When Rita asked about it, he said, "You don't want to know."

The sheriff has investigated the matter, but the district attorney has decided not to prosecute the employee of the facility, who has since been let go for "policy violations." A spokesman for Silverado Senior Living said the company had completed its own investigation and "found nothing to substantiate any wrongdoing."

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

Nursing Home Advocates Rip Governor's Veto

Randy Walton — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:11:23 GMT

Advocates for nursing home residents were stunned by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of a bill that would have required state nursing home inspectors to complete complaint investigations of abuse and neglect in a timely manner. The bill, which required that investigations be completed in 40 days, had broad support in Sacramento.

"I think its garbage," said Pat McGinnis, executive director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. "Obviously, he hasn't looked at the bill. We had to file a lawsuit to get them to do what they were supposed to do."
Last year, McGinnis' group sued the Department of Public Health's licensing division to force it to begin consumer complaint investigations as required by state law. The division was ordered to start chipping away at thousands of backlogged complaints, plus begin investigating new complaints within 10 days as required.
The licensing division's policy is to complete investigations within 45 days. No state-mandated deadline exists.

Without the law, it's impossible to determine whether investigations are being completed in a timely manner, or whether wrongdoing is being found.

Department data indicates the Public Health Department's inspectors are following the law, said Mike Connors, of the nursing home reform organization. No one knows how long the investigations last or how many consumer complaints are validated because that information doesn't have to be reported.
"We don't know if it is conducting timely investigations of facility-reported incidents of abuse and neglect, which outnumber public complaints," Connors said. "The court order doesn't address facility-reported incidents of abuse and neglect because current state law doesn't establish investigation timelines for them."

Incredibly, California's state auditor recently found that of the approximately 17,000 nursing home complaints filed in the previous two years, fewer than 40% were completed in an acceptable amount of time. The problem with slow complaints is self-evident. Evidence gets lost or stale, witnesses disappear, and, sadly, residents die.

The failure to promptly investigate complaints of nursing home abuse and neglect is a growing problem and Californians should be thankful a group like CANHR is working hard to protect this vulnerable segment of our society.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

Nursing Home Neglect: Medicare Patients Not Receiving Quality Care

Randy Walton — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:39:29 GMT

A UCLA study has revealed that vulnerable elderly patients receive only 65 percent of the tests and other diagnostic evaluations and treatments for a number of conditions, including heart disease and diabetes.

The research was gathered from 100,258 community-dwelling geriatric residents in 19 California counties. All the patients studied were enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, and all a mean age of participants was 81. The residents were defined as geriatric patients who are at increased risk of death or functional decline.

"Thirty-five percent of the medical care interventions that they should have received were not provided, indicating significant room for improvement," said lead author Dr. David S. Zingmond, assistant professor of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "We'd much rather have everything higher -- say, at least 90 percent."

The researchers based their work on linked Medicare and Medicaid claims data -- something that is not routinely done.

"Going forward, measures like these will be increasingly important because more detailed health care information, such as electronic health records, are difficult to obtain," Zingmond said.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and by the California Department of Health and Human Services Office of Long Term Care, and appeared in the October issue of the journal Medical Care.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

Want to be Profitable? Go Private, Cut Nursing

Randy Walton — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:53:43 GMT

The county-owned nursing home Vermilion Manor in Virginia is looking to increase the bottom line. Last year it lost money, and a consultant hired to address the problem has the answer: reduce the number of nurses.

According to the News Gazett, the consultant found that the nursing facility provides daily nursing that exceeds the state and national averages, so cutting nursing hours, he concludes, would definitely improve profitability.

The nursing home administration has already been reducing personnel costs in various ways for more than a year and trying to adjust staffing hours based on the number of residents, which fluctuates. The number of nurses on day shift has decreased from 10 last year to eight this year; the number on night shifts from four to three; and the total number of certified nursing assistants has gone from 58 to 45.
[Consultant] Harmon said with three-fourths of this current year "in the can," it looks as if the nursing home's cost-containment measures and attempts to raise revenues by increasing the number of residents is working and should result in a profit.
He added that the facility could be profitable as a privately operated facility, if the county chose to go that route.

This story mirrors what we are seeing in California, that the operators of nursing homes are becoming more and more profit-driven as opposed to care-driven, particularly the large chains. And while every home has the right to be profitable, it is a business of course, it should not do so at the expense of patient care. I wish the best of luck to Vermilion Manor. But earning a bit more profit while increasing exposure to liability for nursing malpractice is a recipe for disaster.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

A Ghoulish Story of Dependent Adult Abuse

Randy Walton — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:21:51 GMT

This Halloween a San Luis Obispo transplant surgeon is accused of dependent adult abuse after allegedly prescribing excessive painkillers and sedatives to expedite the death of a 25-year-old patient with the hope of harvesting his organs.

Prosecutors say Dr. Hootan Roozrokh ordered massive doses of drugs to speed the death of 25-year-old Ruben Navarro last year. Navarro was taken to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center last winter after suffering cardiac arrest. He was later taken off a ventilator and prepared for organ donation. However, his kidneys and liver were never harvested because he did not die within the time when the organs would have been viable.

Dr. Roozokh has pleaded not guilty to the allegations, and his lawyer M. Gerald Schwartzbach says his client did nothing wrong.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton

Bill to Protect Nursing Home Abuse Victims Vetoed

Randy Walton — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:22:38 GMT

Only hours before it would become law, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 399, a popular assembly bill that would have required the California Department of Public Health to complete investigations of nursing home neglect and abuse complaints within reasonable time limits and to notify complainants of findings.

According to the California Advocates of Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), abuse and neglect have reached crisis proportions in California nursing homes. We currently have several elder abuse cases in our office that support this belief.

Complaints and facility reports of abuse and neglect have more than doubled in recent years and continue to grow at double-digit rates each year. More than 15,000 complaints and facility reports are expected to be investigated this year.
The California Department of Public Health's longstanding failure to conduct timely and effective investigations of nursing home complaints is a serious problem. The failures are well documented in a series of government reports, including an April 2007 report by the California State Auditor. It shows the Department failed to timely complete more than 60 percent of 15,275 investigations conducted between July 2004 and April 2006, and that more than 500 complaints remained open for more than one year.
For nursing home residents, the broken investigation system is a matter of life and death. The slow investigations subject residents to continued mistreatment and also compromise the Department's ability to collect evidence. Most nursing homes face no consequences for abuse or neglect because the Department substantiates so few complaints (only one in six according to a 2007 study by the California Healthcare Foundation).

This is a serious problem folks. In my practice I have seen it again and again - horrendous acts of neglect in the nursing home setting verified by an "official" investigation, but no citations issued.

Thanks to CANHR for all there hard work on this issue.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Nursing Home and Elder Abuse.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Randy Walton