Chicago Trial Attorney Blog : Chicago Trial Lawyer & Attorney : Philip J. Berenz Law Firm : Business Litigation, Personal Injury

A doctor, a nurse and a pharmacist have been criminally charged in connection with drugging some 22 nursing home residents with psychotropic medications simply to make them more tranquil. Read the article here. The article notes that 3 people may have died and one suffered great injury as a result. The attorney general noted:

'These people maliciously violated the trust of their patients, by holding them down and forcibly administering psychotropic medications if they dared to question their care" . . . 'This is appalling behavior, which amounts to assault with a deadly weapon.'

Laws protect nursing home residents from abuse and neglect; however, the only way to determine if such is even happening is to communicate often with your loved ones. Ask questions. Ask their neighbors questions. Ask the staff how your loved one is. Review their medical records and nurses notes when you can to determine if they are receiving the care, medications and attention required. If not--get them out of the home!

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An Itasca-area nursing home called The Arbor of Itasca has been sued after an 89-year-old woman, who suffered from dementia, was found frozen to death in the nursing home courtyard. Read the full article here. According to the coroner, the woman was outside for at least 90 minutes. Her family noted that she wasn't even able to leave her bed without assistance and doesn't understand how staff allowed her to slip out unnoticed. Striking to the very heart of the matter, one of the woman's daughters stated simply:

This just can't be allowed to happen to anybody. Nobody should have to die like that.

Under the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act, a facility cannot abuse or neglect a resident. See 210 ILCS 45/2-107. "Neglect" means a failure in a facility to provide adequate medical or personal care or maintenance, which failure results in physical or mental injury to a resident or in the deterioration of a resident's physical or mental condition. See 210 ILCS 45/1-117. "Abuse" means any physical or mental injury or sexual assault inflicted on a resident other than that by accidental means in a facility. See 210 ILCS 45/1-103. Violation of the act can result in damages, including attorney's fees, being awarded. See 210 ILCS 45/3-602. Know the facility that you check your loved ones into and investigate, investigate, investigate before entrusting your family members to any facility.

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A recent article pointed out life inside one of Illinois' "one-star" nursing homes. Notably, when inspectors arrived they found:

The lobby smelled of urine. In one room, they found a 97-year-old woman, lying in her own waste. She had severe bruises on her arm, foot and both legs that the staff could not immediately explain. Another resident had a bed sore larger than a golf ball and dripping blood.

It was also noted that an obese man suffocated after getting stuck between a mattress and side rails and the State of Illinois fined the facility $50,000 for the death--noted as one of of the largest nursing home penalties in the state last year.

In my earlier posts, I stress often that when placing a loved one in any nursing facility, do your due diligence. Check the ratings system. Check the Illinois Department of Public Health. Ask questions of the staff and visit the facility at various times. There is no reason that any resident should ever suffer through these issues.
 

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