A California nursing home operator that failed to provide the state-mandated minimum staffing level of 3.2 nursing hours per day to each resident was recently held accountable by a jury that awarded former and current residents of its 22 nursing homes $677 million. In order to ensure the operator, Skilled Healthcare Group Inc., was able to pay on its obligations, a judge approved a settlement of $50 million paid to the nursing home residents, and $12.8 million paid to comply with the state’s minimum standards for nursing care hours.

Nursing home residents are put in danger when a facility chooses to spend less on resident care and safety in order to pay more to shareholders and managers. In Maine, regulations require nursing homes to provide at least one direct care nurse for every five residents during the day shift. If you or someone you know has been injured by substandard care in a nursing home, you may contact bgideon@bermansimmons.com.

A recent report by the American Association for Justice highlights the role of the civil justice system in protecting the elderly when government regulations are inneffective. For instance, in a trend highlighted by the Government Accountability Office, nursing homes “yo-yo” in and out of compliance with regulations. The nursing homes escape sanctions by fixing problems within a grace period, only to allow the problems to reoccur later. Also, despite over 500 deaths associated with the use of bed rails on beds in the last twenty-five years, warnings by government regulators were largely inneffective.

Yet as the consequence of a lawsuit brought by the family of a nursing home resident who was strangled to death by the restraints on her bed rails while sleeping, the nursing home agreed to reduce the use of restraints, the manufacturer agreed to warn customers about the danger, and there was a ninety percent reduction in the use of restraints in that nursing home. The AAJ’s report contains examples such as these, showing the power of the civil justice system not only to compensate an individual for her injuries, but to protect other nursing home residents from injury as well.

To dowload a copy of the report, go to:

Standing Up For Seniors: How the Civil Justice System Protects Elderly Americans

A Kentucky jury recently awarded $42,750,000 in a wrongful death and negligence suit against a nursing home. The decedent, a 92 year old man suffering from cancer, was in the nursing home for only nine days. During that time, he developed disfiguring and painful sores on his body and became dehydrated, although he had a feeding tube present. The State had investigated allegations that the nursing home did not provide enough staff to care for the residents. The family brought suit hoping to send a message to corporations not to place profits over people or census over care.

An international panel of experts recently released new definitions of malnutrition to help healthcare workers and others identify and treat malnutrition. Before the new definitions, there was little agreement about how to define the different causes and forms of malnutrition. A 2000 study found that 35% to 85% of nursing home residents could be considered malnourished, depending on the type of malnutrition in question. The new definitions are designed to help health care providers identify and treat malnutrition.

If you are someone you know has been harmed by neglect or abuse in a nursing home or care facility, you may contact Benjamin Gideon at bgideon@bermansimmons.com

Experts Provide New Definitions for Malnutrition

The health care reform bill signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010 includes important provisions to prevent abuse of long term care residents. The Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act, included in the bill, requires facilities to provide more information to the public about risk factors for negligence, abuse, and neglect such as staff turnover and retention, the outcome of complaints against the facilities, and proven crimes by facilities and employees against residents. The additional information will be provided on Nursing Home Compare, a databank already available on Medicare.gov, the federal government’s official Medicare website.

The Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act creates a national program for criminal background checks of long term care employees, so that employees convicted of abuse or neglect cannot simply move to another state to work in a different long term care facility. Holding long term care facilities and their employees accountable for negligence, neglect, and abuse is key to preventing future harm to long term care residents.

If you or someone you know has been the victim of negligence, neglect, or abuse in a long term care facility, contact Benjamin Gideon at bgideon@bermansimmons.com

For more information on the provisions affecting long term care in the health care bill, see National Consumer Voice for Quality Long Term Care website