Pennsylvania Nursing Home Abuse Attorney Blog

A recent article about a Pennsylvania family's lawsuit against the Jewish Home of Eastern Pennsylvania in Scranton got our attention as Pennsylvania nursing home negligence lawyers. The family of Elizabeth LaCoste, a now-deceased Jewish Home patient, argues that Jewish Home workers' negligence caused her serious injuries before her death in October of 2009. In our view as Philadelphia nursing home negligence attorneys, it's shameful that this accident occurred at all, but it's good that LaCoste's family is holding the Jewish Home accountable for its failure to prevent it.

The accident occurred when Jewish Home patients were in center-city Scranton to watch a musical performance on the afternoon of August 1, 2008. Instead of watching over LaCoste, Jewish Home workers left her alone in a wheelchair on a sloping sidewalk. In the unattended wheelchair, LaCoste careened down a hill, went over the curb, and then flew out of the wheelchair into the street. She suffered a broken collarbone, a head injury, bruises and abrasions. The article did not say whether those injuries contributed to her death 14 months later, or how they may have affected her health afterward.

As I have discussed before, it's unfortunately all too common for accidents like this to occur because of understaffing in nursing homes. In this case, we don't know for sure that understaffing was to blame, but the description of the incident certainly suggests some negligence. Based on my knowledge of other cases we've encountered as Pennsylvania nursing home abuse lawyers, understaffing often can result in careless, negligent behavior by workers. Even well-meaning nursing home staff can make serious mistakes when they are spread too thin or are inexperienced in their jobs. Yet nursing home companies essentially ensure that staff members are inexperienced and spread too thin by paying them so little that they have every incentive to constantly look for better-paying jobs. This is bad for patients as well as for staff members.

Continue reading "Pennsylvania Family Fights Back Against Scranton Nursing Home's Alleged Negligence" »

The Wall Street Journal reported recently on a development in nursing home care that could be good for nursing home patients if it's used well: a socially interactive robotic baby seal. A robotic stuffed animal may seem like a strange substitute for real human interaction. But from my perspective as a Philadelphia nursing home negligence attorney, if the baby seal robot is used as a supplement to, rather than a substitute for, edifying interaction with staff and visitors, it could be a welcome source of enjoyment for nursing home patients.

The six-pound baby seal robot, called Paro, was invented five years ago by a Japanese robot manufacturer. Its electronic innards allow it to recognize and respond to voices, track people's movements with its head and eyes, bat its eyelashes and repeat behaviors that get a positive response. Danish nursing homes have invested in Paro robots since a 2008 study found that they soothed dementia patients and improved their communication. Here in Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh nursing home has found that some of its residents interact with the robot as if it's a pet, and some staff find that the robot facilitates social interaction among residents. Marleen Dean, activities manager at Vincentian Home in Pittsburgh, said that Paro comforts dementia patients. "Some of our residents need more than we as human beings can provide... We've tried soft teddy bears that talk and move. But they don't have the same effect."

This robot sounds like a good alternative for centers that want the positive interactions of a pet but have practical concerns holding them back. But as a Pennsylvania nursing home abuse lawyer, I hope they it does not take the place of social interaction that's led and supervised by human staff members. Paro can be used as a substitute for pet therapy, but it seems cruel to deprive nursing home patients of interactions with real, live beings in favor of a more convenient robot. I would especially discourage nursing homes from relying on robots or pet therapy in place of adequate staffing with well-trained, qualified human beings to meet patients' needs. Everyone needs meaningful social interaction to stay mentally healthy. A robotic baby seal gives patients something to love, which is valuable, but it can't provide mentally stimulating conversation or a real relationship. Nor can it turn the eagle eye on patients' conditions that a human family member or friend might. And it is certainly no substitute for adequate care from a professional staff.

Continue reading "Pennsylvania Nursing Home Uses Baby Seal Robot to Comfort Dementia Patients" »

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent warning letters to 120 western Pennsylvania nursing homes and assisted living facilities about worker injuries in the past year. Nursing homes received a greater number of warnings than any other industry in the area, even mills and foundries, representing out of every five companies that received such letters. As Pennsylvania nursing home negligence attorneys, we are concerned about the high level of worker injuries in nursing homes, because what's bad for workers is generally bad for patients.

Some nursing homes are notorious for low staffing levels, which is bad for patients because it means the staff can be slow to respond to their needs because they are stretched so thin. When employees are overburdened, they can get hurt, like Ruth Heastings, a nurse's aide at Consulate Healthcare of Cheswick. When lifting a patient, she hurt her shoulder and suffered pain so long-lasting that she had to have her whole shoulder surgically reconstructed. She missed five weeks of work and is still on light duty. Heastings said that her colleagues at Consulate and in other nursing homes have been hurt with back injuries, and that understaffing has something to do with it. When nursing home staffers have to miss work because of injuries, that means that their colleagues have to pick up the slack, or that substitutes have to be called in. Both choices raise the chance that patients will be neglected or abused by staff members who are too busy to thoroughly read the patients' care plans, follow procedures carefully, or respond to calls promptly, all of which can result in serious injury to patients. Staff members could also take out the frustration of their too-busy work situation on patients by treating them abusively. Consulate's injury rate was more than four times the national average, but two others--Arden Courts of Jefferson Hills and Latrobe Regional Health and Rehabilitation Center--had injury rates more than ten times the national average.

We have written about situations like this from our perspective as Philadelphia nursing home abuse lawyers many times over the past few months. Studies show that understaffing at nursing homes is a real problem, depriving staff members of the time they need to provide the best care. It can also shorten tempers and increase turnover, both of which can lead to neglect and abuse. As Philadelphia nursing home abuse lawyers, we hope that nursing homes that received warning letters will live up to their obligation to provide safe conditions for patients and workers alike.

Continue reading "Pennsylvania Nursing Homes Rated Dangerous Places to Work" »

Pennsylvania nursing home workers who are part of the Service Employees International Union have threatened to strike if their demands for pay raises and affordable health care benefits are not met. The union members who might strike include licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, dietary workers, housekeepers, and maintenance workers -- all vitally important to proper nursing home patient care. This is a labor issue, but as a Pennsylvania nursing home abuse lawyer, I know staffing levels and conditions are a very important part of safety for nursing home patients. For the sake of patients as well as the others involved, I hope that a strike is averted.

The nursing home staff members are all employees of homes owned by Extendicare, including Spruce Manor Nursing and Rehab Center in West Reading, PA; Slate Belt Nursing and Rehab Center in Bangor, PA; Broad Mountain Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Frackville, PA; and Beaver Valley Nursing and Rehab in Beaver Falls, PA. They complain that pay raises in their current contract don't keep up with the cost of living. This issue directly affects nursing home patients' lives, because underpaid and overworked nursing home staff members make serious mistakes in patient care. Studies consistently show that undertrained staff members are more likely to make mistakes or actively abandon good practices. Many of the abuses that nursing home patients experience can be traced to low staffing levels or insufficient attention to the quality of the staff, both of which can be caused by a nursing home company's desire to ramp up profits by cutting labor costs. For example, failure to read and follow a patient's treatment plan, or failure to respond to emergencies in time to help patients, can result from a small staff being stretched too thin. As I discussed recently, this can have tragic results.

Extendicare made over $17 million in profits last year in Pennsylvania, a profit that SEIU said rose by over 50% from the 2008 number. Christine Peters, part of the SEIU bargaining committee and a certified nursing assistant, said, "We want to make sure that some of these profits (go to) improving staffing for our residents and good job standards for caregivers." As a Philadelphia nursing home negligence attorney, I applaud this sentiment. Nursing home companies that privilege profits over patient care inevitably put patients' lives and well being in danger. The threat of a strike may ultimately help patients as well as the staff members live better lives.

Continue reading "Pennsylvania Nursing Home Employees Threaten Strike Over Pay" »

Philadelphia's local ABC affiliate, WPVI, reported recently that a West Philadelphia nursing home has been shut down for serious code violations. According to neighbors, elderly patients of the nursing home were often left on the street to fend for themselves. There have also been allegations that patients were physically abused. The State Department of Public Health removed residents and medical equipment from the nursing home after determining that the home's condition was "an immediate and serious danger to the lives and health" of its residents. As a Philadelphia nursing home negligence lawyer, I am saddened to hear that patients were made to live in such deplorable conditions at a time when they should have been receiving care and compassion from the staff to whom their care was entrusted.

The owner of the Adelphia Personal Care Home, Anand Mittal, and his wife were charged by the Attorney General with criminal offenses such as reckless endangerment, insurance fraud, criminal conspiracy, and allowing an unlicensed person to operate the facility's pharmacy. Anand Mittal has already pleaded guilty to felony charges including making fraudulent claims. According to The Intelligencer News, Mittal and his wife, Kumkum Mittal, have faced such charges before in connection with the Willow Crest Manor assisted living facility they owned. A November 2009 report in The Intelligencer of Doylestown, Penn. details charges against Anand Mittal including Medicaid fraud, insurance fraud, theft by deception, recklessly endangering others, conspiracy and violations of the state's Pharmacy Act. Kumkum Mittal was charged with tampering with public records, theft by deception, recklessly endangering others and conspiracy. The facility's former nursing director, Cynthia L. Dreifert, pled guilty to tampering with placement records there and received a sentence of one year's probation.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mittal's history of problems does not end there. According to The Intelligencer, in October 2008, Mr. Mittal was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct for allegedly yelling at a Willow Crest Manor patient, grabbing him around the neck, and shaking him. An employee who saw it happen was so upset that she quit immediately.

While I am glad that patients who were subjected to such treatment have finally been moved to safer environments, as a Pennsylvania nursing home abuse attorney I wonder how these patients are being provided for. They were unlikely to be in good health to begin with, and the abuse and neglect they experienced while in the Mittals' institutions may have worsened their health considerably. In addition, terrible experiences like being left helpless on the street to fend for themselves must have taken a serious emotional toll on these patients. While those responsible for abuse may be held criminally accountable by the state, an experienced nursing home abuse lawyer can help victims hold their abusers accountable in civil court as well. Abusers owe a debt to those whom they have harmed as well as to society as a whole.

Continue reading "Philadelphia Nursing Home Run by Repeat Offender Shut Down for Safety Reasons" »

Spurred by reports of negligence in patient care, McKnight's Long Term Care News reports that the Senate Finance Committee has demanded that Select Medical Corporation answer questions about its staffing levels and quality that were raised in a recent New York Times article. Select, a Pennsylvania-based corporation, runs 89 long-term care hospitals and is one of the largest such companies in the United States. Among the troubling cases that concern the Senate Finance Committee are a patient's heart attack and death after a nurse turned off his heart monitor because she was tired of hearing its beep.

Long-term care hospitals treat seriously ill patients who are too sick for nursing homes and who are not improving quickly at regular hospitals. The New York Times reports allegations that Select structures its patients' stays so that it can maximize payments from Medicare, regardless of the patients' medical needs, and it inadequately staffs its hospitals for financial reasons. Patient care is compromised as a result of these profit-driven concerns. Select denies all of these allegations. Nevertheless, Select's hospitals received four times the number of citations for serious violations of Medicare rules that regular hospitals received in 2007 and 2008.

The only penalty that Medicare can use to punish hospitals for such violations is to bar them from Medicare entirely. That penalty is rarely used, and in one case when it was applied, the hospital successfully sued to bar Medicare from imposing it. However, the families of some victims of long-term care hospital negligence have filed lawsuits against the companies. Even if Medicare does not stop abusive long-term care hospitals from continuing to harm patients, negligent institutions and the companies that run them can still be held accountable through lawsuits.

Continue reading "Dangerous Negligence Attributed to Pennsylvania Long-Term Care Hospital Company" »

Nursing home employees have a lot of access to prescription drugs. As Philadelphia nursing home negligence attorneys, we know that this can lead to serious wrongdoing in some cases -- such as the case of 26-year-old Andrea Markland. The Allentown Morning Call reported Feb. 9 that Markland, a former aide at a Telford nursing home, will stand trial for stealing time-released painkiller patches from the bodies of residents. She is charged with neglect of a care-dependent person as well as theft and receiving stolen property.

Markland's victims were two women in their eighties who had been prescribed time-release patches containing fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate. One of the victims has died since the thefts. In written statements to police, Markland admitted that she stole the patches five to seven times, cut them open and ate the medicated gel inside to feed an addiction to painkillers. By stealing the patches, the home's nursing supervisor said, Markland left the women in "debilitating pain." She also stole from the people who were paying for the women's treatment, a police officer said. Markland was caught after another employee saw her leaving an area where she wasn't supposed to be working.

As Philadelphia nursing home abuse lawyers, we suspect that this problem happens more often in nursing homes than it's reported. Opiates and other painkillers are widely abused and are heavily restriction because of their high potential for abuse. It's easy to predicts that nursing home workers might be tempted to abuse their positions, or even intentionally take a job to get access to narcotics. Nursing homes have a legal and ethical obligation to protect their residents from employees and potential employees willing to feed their addictions at residents' expense.

Continue reading "Pennsylvania Nursing Home Aide Charged With Stealing Patients Drugs" »

Our Pennsylvania nursing home negligence attorneys wrote recently about a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigation of state-run veterans' nursing homes. As part of that investigation, the newspaper profiled a nursing home neglect lawsuit filed by a family here in the Philadelphia area. The daughters of Harold Chapman sued the Delaware Valley Nursing Home after the 75-year-old dementia patient died of exposure in December of 2007. Surveillance tapes showed that Chapman, a former Philadelphia police officers, simply rode an elevator downstairs with an off-duty staff member and walked out the door, two hours before any staff members noticed he was missing.

It was New Year's Eve when Chapman left the building; his widow, Barbara Chapman, said everyone in the building was busy getting ready for a party. Records show no one was monitoring Chapman at the time, nor did anyone stop him from leaving the building even though he was only wearing pajamas. Two hours later, a nurse noticed he was missing, but it took more than another hour to notify the home's commander and call the police. A search of the grounds on foot and by police helicopter turned up nothing, but the next day, Chapman was found dead of hypothermia, only a short distance from the building. A staff member who was with Chapman before he left quit his job when he discovered he would be questioned.

State officials would not comment on the incident. However, the Delaware Valley home was later cited for breaking several laws in the incident, and staff members were reprimanded or suspended for their roles. It was just one of several homes with serious problems found in the Tribune-Review's investigation. Unfortunately, as Philadelphia nursing home abuse lawyers, we know that patients like Chapman are particularly vulnerable to neglectful and poorly-run homes, because they don't have the ability to speak out or protect themselves. We represent clients who, like Chapman's daughters, are pursuing justice from homes whose negligence has harmed or even killed patients.

Continue reading "Family Sues Philadelphia Nursing Home Over Father's Death from Exposure" »

Our Pennsylvania nursing home neglect attorneys were shocked and disturbed to read a recent article exposing serious problems with two state-run nursing homes. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Jan. 25 that the state health department's inspectors found negligence and misuse of psychiatric drugs at the Hollidaysburg Veterans Home between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Another home, the Gino J. Merli Veterans' Home in Scranton, was cited for allowing two outbreaks of scabies, failure to prevent or treat bedsores and failing to maintain sanitary conditions. The state runs four other veterans' homes, but only these two garnered the lowest possible rating because of serious repeat violations.

In Hollidaysburg, health inspectors found that patients were improperly receiving psychiatric medicines to control their behavior. Attendants routinely physically restrained patients for bathing or medical treatment. Abuse concerns reported by a psychiatrist went uninvestigated by a director who said he didn't believe he had to investigate statements about staffers' personal feelings. In another case, home staff didn't contact police about suspected abuse, despite a state law compelling them to, so the victim's wife did it.

At the Scranton home, residents endured two rounds of scabies because home officials failed to ensure that an employee had recovered fully before coming back to work. It was also cited for failure to prevent bedsores. In one case, a doctor ordered treatment for bedsores, but the home failed to take action for nine days. At least two other patients were cited for dehydrated residents. And over three years, the state found 38 reports of possible patient abuse by staff or other patients.

As Philadelphia nursing home abuse lawyers, we hope this article leads to immediate corrective action by state regulators. Nursing home patients are in homes because they can no longer care for themselves, and that often means they're at the mercy of their caregivers. As the report shows, bad caregivers can have a profound effect on their health and their quality of life.

Continue reading "Newspaper Exposes Serious Negligence at Pennsylvania Veterans' Nursing Homes" »

As Philadelphia nursing home negligence attorneys, we were disappointed to see that nursing homes across the state are experiencing and expecting financial trouble because of the recession. The Lebanon Daily News reported Jan. 22 that nursing homes in the region are laying off staff members, cutting patient services or even closing. The problem is driven by the bad economy, which has resulted in cuts to Medicare and cuts or lack of growth on the state level. The issue is particularly important because 90% of Pennsylvania's nursing home patients are part of the Medicaid system.

According to one advocate for the elderly and disabled, Medicaid and Medicare are chronically underfunded in Pennsylvania to begin with. The funding cuts will make this worse, he said, as would the Medicare cuts included in the federal health care bill, if they pass. Homes shouldn't have trouble providing basic services, but he said they might end up cutting recreation and other quality-of-life services. Local homes told the newspaper that they were renegotiating contracts and looking for ways to cut costs without letting go of staff.

Our Pennsylvania nursing home abuse lawyers hope that's true. Adequate staffing levels, and low staff turnover, are an essential part of making sure nursing homes are safe and healthy places. When staff members are overworked, skilled nurses are absent or employee churn is high, details and even basic care are more likely to be overlooked. This can lead to serious cases of neglect or abuse at nursing homes, sometimes with tragic results.

Continue reading "Pennsylvania Nursing Homes Bracing for Medicaid and Medicare Funding Cuts" »

Our Philadelphia nursing home neglect attorneys were very interested in a news report about an unusual form of negligence by a nursing home. According to a Jan. 19 article in the Philadelphia Daily News, a Northeast Philadelphia nursing home mistakenly told the wife and son of 81-year-old Leonard Cantz that he had died. Dolores Cantz and her son Michael began making funeral arrangements and gathering their family, only to receive another call, five hours later, saying there'd been a mistake. The nursing home staff had mixed up Cantz's name with that of another patient, and he was very much still alive.

Leonard Cantz lives in the home because he has Alzheimer's disease, which means he didn't realize the home's mistake. But the first call was very upsetting for Dolores and Michael Cantz, who first heard that an ambulance was on its way to the home. Michael Cantz took the day off work and rushed to the home, but called en route and was told that his father was already dead. Upset and grieving, they called a funeral home to make arrangements. When the funeral home's representative arrived, he found Leonard Cantz still alive. It was only after he arrived at the nursing home that the home's staff realized their mistake and called the family back to explain. The family was delighted to find him still alive, but upset to be launched into the grieving process by mistake.

As Pennsylvania nursing home abuse lawyers, we normally handle cases involving abuse or neglect of the patient. But this type of negligence by nursing home staff may also be actionable, especially if it causes severe loss of income, medical or funeral bills and extreme emotional distress.

Continue reading "Philadelphia Nursing Home Incorrectly Tells Family Resident Died" »