The world is being affected by the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This is an unprecedented time, and everyone is learning different ways to cope and adjust to the new environment.
The federal government has instituted temporary changes for long-term care facilities (nursing homes) to help combat the spread of the disease. The changes include:
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Continue Reading Maintaining Routine and Procedures in Nursing Homes During COVID-19
When we think about workplace safety issues, it’s easy to default to a mental image of construction workers or firefighters. Those jobs have very visible risks thanks to big machinery and precarious working conditions. However, caretakers at nursing homes face serious workplace risks as well. This is due largely to employers’ and owners’ failures to adequately staff these facilities.
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Continue Reading Staff Shortages Threaten Residents at Nursing Homes
Three women working at a nursing home have been arrested and charged with assault after engaging in elder abuse, pushing a patient, and encouraging a physical altercation between two residents. The incident was recorded, showing none of the employees stepped in to stop the fight.
The patients, who had dementia, were at the facility and should have received care that made them feel safe. Instead, they were physically abused and encouraged to fight one another, with employees looking on as the fight progressed to punching and choking. Rather than stepping in, one of the employees called out to the resident to punch the other in the face, still not intervening even when the resident called out for help.
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Continue Reading Nursing Home ‘Fight Club’ Shows Need for Training, Background Checks
The New Jersey State Health Department and Westfield, New Jersey police are currently investigating a claim of physical abuse of an elderly woman at a nursing home facility, who sustained severe injuries to her face.
The woman’s son claims his mother was physically abused, posting pictures on Facebook of his mother’s injuries which include two black eyes, facial wounds, and a swollen nose. The facility claims the injuries were the result of a fall, but the son says his mother frequently told him she was hit and treated roughly.
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Continue Reading Nursing Home Abuse Being Investigated; Facility Claims It Was a “Fall”
The rise and spread of drug-resistant germs, including infections and funguses, has been tied to nursing facilities and long-term care facilities. Due to lack of staff training on infection procedures, understaffing, and not being equipped to deal with serious infections, patients wind up being cycled through the hospital and back again. As a result, these dangerous germs spread not just within the facility, but also to hospitals—with devastating results.
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Continue Reading Nursing Homes Contribute to Spread Life-Threatening and Drug-Resistant Germs
Michael Vecchio, a 29 year-old patient at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany, died after 3 months of hospitalization. The patient did not have a terminal illness or life-threatening condition–he was admitted because he suffered from schizophrenia. After weeks of not eating, he passed away.
The facility pointed to privacy laws when preventing Michael’s family from knowing he stopped eating until he was rushed in an ambulance to Morristown Medical Center on Jan. 24, 2017. His mother, Beth Vecchio, said a nurse told her that Michael suffered severe stomach pain “for a few days” before Greystone finally called the ambulance. Michael died twenty hours later.
Bedsores, also known as pressure ulcers, are an all too common occurrence in nursing homes and extended care facilities. The Federal Government has made a determination that “bedsores,” should not happen in nursing homes. See 42 C.F.R. 483.25(b)(ii) (stating “a resident . . . does not develop pressure sores unless the individual’s clinical condition demonstrates that they were unavoidable.”)
Those who are in a nursing home or extended care facility are usually there because there is a need for care beyond what can be provided at home. Elderly patients are especially prone to these potentially life-threatening sores, given their age, lack of mobility, thinner skin, and medical issues. However, bedsores can often be prevented with the right care plan in place. Their occurrence can be a sign of nursing home neglect.
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Continue Reading Are Bedsores a Sign of Nursing Home Neglect?
On June 12, 2019, a report released by the Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General revealed that Nursing Home Abuse remains largely unreported. The study examined claims sent to Medicare in 2016 by beneficiaries residing in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). The report states that approximately one in five of those emergency room visits were the result of potential abuse or neglect.
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Continue Reading Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse Incidents are Largely Unreported
Late last December, a nurse at Hacienda HealthCare in Arizona panicked and called 911 as a patient unexpectedly gave birth. The 29 year old patient, who has been in a vegetative state since age 3, delivered a healthy baby boy. A police investigation concluded that one of her caregivers, a 32 year-old male nurse, raped the patient several times and fathered the child. The victim’s attorneys filed a $45 million notice of claim against the state of Arizona in late May.
After giving birth in the nursing home, the victim and baby were transferred to a nearby hospital. According to the hospital, the baby’s birth was “a repeat parous event,” meaning the victim had likely been pregnant before.
After an “accidental” fall in a Brick Township, New Jersey nursing home landed an Alzheimer’s patient in the hospital, the patient’s daughter advocated for more protection of the elderly. The elder abuse regulations geared to prevent elder abuse are finally law.
Gov. Chris Christie signed Peggy’s Law (S-1219), named for Peggy Marzolla, in August of 2017. The law aims to protect senior citizens in nursing homes from abuse by requiring facility staff to promptly report suspected abuse and exploitation to law enforcement. Previously, staff members were only required to submit cases of abuse to New Jersey’s Office of the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly, but not to the police.
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Continue Reading Peggy’s Law Aims to Protect Nursing Home Residents from Abuse
