Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog

According to recent nursing home neglect news that our Charles County, Maryland nursing home attorneys have been following, a worker in a Saint Louis nursing home was found last week to have removed the Fentanyl drug pain patch from an 87-year-old resident, in order to take the drug herself.

Kathleen Lung, the 41-year-old nursing home worker, reportedly took the patch to ingest the pain medication for personal use. Fetanyl is an opioid pain relieving medication, often administered with patches, that as our nursing home abuse attorneys discussed in a recent Baltimore medication error blog is over 100 times stronger than morphine and should only be administered to opioid-tolerant people who have long-term and chronic pain, like cancer patients. The drug reportedly has effects on the body that are similar to heroin.

The other staff members reportedly noticed the removal of the nursing home resident’s patch and quickly replaced it. Lung was charged with criminal abuse and neglect of an elderly person, along with unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

Our Maryland nursing home attorneys reported on a similar case of nursing home abuse and neglect recently after a nurse’s assistant was found to have removed medication from a fentanyl medication pain patch on a 92-year-old nursing home resident—also for personal drug use. The nurse’s aide poked holes with a pin in the resident’s fentanyl patch, and reportedly squeezed the drug out of the patch, stealing the drug by licking his fingers.

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In a recent Maryland nursing home lawyer blog, our attorneys discussed the prevalence of nursing home abuse in facilities across the country, and how families are fighting back by installing hidden cameras to ensure the safe and proper treatment of their loved ones.

In a recent nursing home abuse incident, the son of a 78-year-old resident installed a hidden camera in April of this year, after he feared that his mother was being mistreated at MetroHealth Medical Center’s nursing home care facilities in Ohio.

According to WKYC- Channel 3 News, Steve Piskor felt that his mother, who suffers from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, was being abused by the staff. Piskor contacted administrators to discuss marks on her face, and the fact that when he approached her, she would raise her hands to protect her face in a fearful manner. He also reported incidents of negligence, after he found the heat off and the window open in his mother’s room in the middle of winter.

After MetroHealth reportedly ignored his complaints of abuse, Piskor installed the camera to prove that his mother was experiencing nursing home abuse and mistreatment. Although the camera was hidden inside a fan, Piskor put up a sign warning workers that a camera had been installed in the room.

Piskor said that it took only a few days to capture abuse—showing a nursing aide striking his mother’s face, violently shoving her into bed and the wheelchair, and pushing her face into the wall. Other footage reportedly showed another nurse’s aide hitting his mother, while another nursing home employee turned a blind eye to the abuse. Piskor kept the hidden camera rolling for two months to ensure that MetroHealth wouldn’t dismiss the nursing home abuse.

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Last month, the widow of a former resident at Madison Manor nursing home filed a nursing home negligence lawsuit against the Kentucky home, after she claims the nursing home neglected to care for her husband’s foot infection—which led to leg amputation and wrongful death.

According to a Richmond Register report, that our Baltimore nursing home attorneys have been watching develop, Donna Anderson claims that while her husband Robert was a patient at the Richmond Health and Rehabilitation facility/Madison Manor from April to May 2009, the home contributed to the deterioration of her husband’s physical health condition—that was far beyond the normal process of aging.

Anderson claims in the suit that her husband, Robert, suffered severe pain and suffering, disability, mental anguish, and disfigurement while he was a resident in the home, as well as loss of personal dignity, because of the negligent care in the nursing home.

The lawsuit also states that Anderson’s infection spread because the home did not take the necessary steps to provide proper care and hygiene, as well as taking necessary precautions to prevent malnutrition. As our Baltimore nursing home lawyer blog has reported in the past, key nutrition and a healthy diet that is rich in vitamins and minerals can be an important step to the prevention, healing and recovery of nursing home infection. Anderson also claimed that her husband’s care records were not properly maintained, and that his symptoms and pain were not properly monitored.

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Last year’s east coast heat wave in July led to the closing of Baltimore, Maryland’s Ravenwood Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, as our Baltimore nursing home lawyer blog discussed, moving 150 residents out of the facility, as well as 70 residents from Liberty Health and Rehabilitation Center, after the air condition systems in both homes experienced malfunctions, failing to keep residents safe and cool in the dangerous heat.

Maryland officially issued a “Code Red – Heat Alert” cautioning all licensed health care and residential facilities in the state to implement the necessary precautions to make sure to protect the health and safety of all residents inside, while the outside temperatures were hovering at around 100°F.

Earlier this month, Milwaukee, Wisconsin health officials also warned residents to use caution in the current heat wave, as a nursing home resident was left in the scorching heat by caretakers for over three hours, which could have caused his wrongful death.

Martin Belkin, a 69-year-old resident who lived at Sunrise Care Center, reportedly asked to be taken outside to enjoy the warm summer weather. Belkin was left sitting from 2:45 p.m. until 6 p.m. and was unsupervised, according to the Medical Examiner’s office.

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According to a recent Los Angeles Times report from the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, the United States needs to prepare itself for the growing number of elderly people with dementia and other mental illnesses—as the first group of baby boomers are turning 65 this year.

The problem, according to the report, is not due to an increase in mental illness with older people— but rather that 20% of this country’s population will be 65 and older by 2030. This will be a 12% increase from now.

The average life expectancy is also increasing with seniors, so elderly people who suffer from mental problems like dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease are living longer, with illnesses that can cause forms of behavior that are aggressive, with disorientation, delusions, nursing home wandering and other behavior, leading to harm or resident injury.

A recent Queen’s Medical Center study in Honolulu, Hawaii, found that the number of senior patients with mental illnesses receiving emergency treatment has spiked, with a 30% jump from 2008-2009. Many elderly patients were reportedly brought into the hospital by caregivers or family members who were unable to deal with the severe symptoms of the mental illnesses, and were exhausted or overwhelmed by the caregiving. The study found that emergency room treatment often occurs after many attempts of local placement for the senior.

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In a recent Talbot County, Maryland nursing home lawyer blog, our attorneys discussed a devastating nursing home wandering case, that was allegedly caused by negligence and resulted in the resident's wrongful death.

Nursing home wandering frequently occurs with residents who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and suffer from confusion and disorientation. It is important for nursing homes to recognize residents who are at-risk for nursing home wandering and falls to prevent patient injury or wrongful death.

In another tragic nursing home wandering case, a home was recently fined over $20,000 after an elderly blind resident with dementia wandered from the Kernersville home and drowned in a puddle around 200 feet away from the facility.

The resident reportedly approached the staff in the home’s lobby three times late in the evening, each time in a disoriented state, wanting someone to take her across the creek to the next county. The staff reportedly took the resident back to her bed each time, where she remained until they did the 2 a.m. bed check.

According to the state investigation, the resident left the building sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. The alarm on the door did not turn off, as it had been reportedly deactivated so staff could go outside for smoking breaks. The staff allegedly neglected to turn the alarm back on.

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According to a shocking Miami Herald expose that our Hartford County, Maryland nursing home abuse attorneys have been following, nursing homes throughout Florida are being accused of horrific cases of elder abuse and neglect. The series of articles in the Herald highlight an alleged breakdown in the state’s nursing home enforcement system—leaving thousands of residents in conditions that are both dangerous and decrepit.

The Herald spent a year examining assisted living facilities and found that as the number of homes have increased to accommodate the state’s major elderly population increase, Florida has failed to protect the very people it was meant to safeguard. Although the number of new nursing homes has totaled 550 in the last five years, the state has reportedly dropped necessary home inspections by 33%, allowing homes with the worst abuse and neglect offenses to remain open.

Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration oversees 2,850 facilities, and has allegedly neglected to monitor nursing home operators for abuse or neglect, investigate nursing home reports citing dangerous practices, and shut down the homes with the worst offenders—many of which lack necessary staffing, disregard nursing home regulations and deprive their residents of the most basic needs, like food, water and safety.

The investigation found that nearly once every month, residents die from nursing home abuse and neglect. In one incident, a 75-year-old dementia resident, who was at high risk for nursing home wandering, walked away from the Pinellas County nursing home, and reportedly had his body torn apart by alligators. In another home, a 71-year-old resident with a mental illness was burned so severely from being left in a bathtub that was carelessly filled with scalding hot water, that he died from a result of the burns.

Many nursing homes, according to the article, are also regularly caught using restraints that are against the law, including ropes and powerful tranquilizers. In one assisted living home a 74-year-old woman was bound for over six hours, with restraints allegedly wrapped so painfully tight that the device her tore into her flesh, causing her death.

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