Across the country, a majority of states including California are seeing an increase in the number of mentally ill patients who are being dumped into nursing homes meant for the elderly. This is placing thousands of elderly residents in these facilities at risk of being abused or attacked by these patients.

The Associated Press has a report of how much at risk residents are from these mentally ill patents. Elderly residents have suffered serious injuries, and in a few cases, have even been killed by these patients. In a Chicago nursing home, a 77-year-old nursing home resident, Ivory Jackson, was killed when his face was smashed in by a roommate as he slept. The roommate, a man 30 years younger than the victim, was mentally ill. When police arrived, they found him with blood all over his hand and clothes. The ceiling of the room was sprayed with the victim’s blood. The man was later arrested and charged. For the victim’s family, the questions are agonizing. Why wasn’t more done to protect their loved one from someone who clearly had a mental problem?

The Associated Press uses data obtained from all states which show that in most of the states, nursing homes meant for elder care have become what it calls “dumping grounds” for the mentally ill. Most of these patients are young and middle aged people suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

It isn’t hard to see why the elderly in these nursing homes are at risk from these mentally ill patients. The elderly are frail, weak, and in many cases, sick. The mentally ill patients, that they are being forced to share space with in these facilities, are much younger and physically stronger. Even more dangerous is the fact that they suffer from serious mental conditions that can make them aggressive. For instance, these patients may suffer from extreme paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations. This causes a situation where the elderly and the weak have to constantly live in fear of becoming the victim of their roommates’ illness-fueled rages.

There are several reasons why the mentally ill are being dumped into elder care homes. There is a shortage of beds in psychiatric hospitals. Since the sixties, several state mental institutions have been forced to close down because of their poor conditions. Besides, elders of today are healthier and less likely to need a nursing home which means that these facilities have beds to spare.

The report outlines several incidents over the past few years that underscore how serious the problem is. In 2003, a mental patient in Connecticut started a fire that killed 16 fellow residents. In 2006, a 77-year-old Ohio nursing home resident was beaten to death by his mentally ill roommate. Earlier this year, a 21-year-old bipolar disorder patient raped a 69-year-old resident at the nursing home they shared in Chicago. It was later found that the man had a history of violence. Even then, staff at the nursing home left him unsupervised. Ivory Jackson was killed by a roommate who had a history of aggression. He frequently screamed and kicked doors, and spent time on the streets before he was admitted to the nursing home.

Several families have filed elder abuse lawsuits to put pressure on nursing homes to increase security for their loved ones.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of nursing home abuse. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

A Lemon Grove nursing home has been cited for its failure to prevent the death of a 74-year-old woman who suffered burn injuries while smoking at the facility, and later died. The Lemon Grove Care and Rehabilitation Center received an AA citation which is the most severe that can be given under California law. The facility has also been fined $80,000.

According to a report by the California Department of Public Health, the woman was not being monitored when she and two other residents of the facility went off to smoke at a designated smoking area in the gazebo. The woman pulled her nylon jacket over her head, and lit the cigarette. The nylon jacket caught fire, causing serious chest, head, and arm burn injuries to the woman. She died 10 days later. According to the report, the woman had been a resident at the Lemon Grove Center since 2007. She suffered from memory loss and confusion. She was a chronic smoker, but constantly forgot about smoking only in designated areas. According to the report, the woman was “non-compliant” with the smoking policy at the center, and the facility was aware that she had a problem with memory loss. Even with this awareness, Lemon Grove Care and Rehabilitation Center failed to conduct routine and random checks by staff to make sure the woman was safe.

The woman’s relatives told investigators of the Department of Public Health that they had brought their concerns over the lack of supervision at the facility to the attention of the facility management. But the center failed to act on these concerns. The center has since made it a requirement for one of its staff members to be present at the gazebo while the facility’s residents are smoking. Representatives of the 158-bed center have confirmed that they will file a lawsuit challenging the fine and the citation. They refute the allegations that they contributed to the death of the woman. Lemon Grove Care and Rehabilitation Center has received citations before, including 2 minor citations in 2008 and one in 2005.

Lack of supervision of residents at a facility can lead to these residents causing themselves injury. Residents are usually of frail mind and body, and in this case, the woman also suffered from memory loss. Such people need constant supervision and monitoring to make sure they are safe at all times. It’s precisely because it isn’t possible for a resident’s family members to provide supervision all the time that they are admitted to these nursing homes. Such neglect is inexcusable, no matter how large the facility is, and how many patients it takes care of. If Lemon Grove Care and Rehabilitation Center had additional staff to monitor residents’ smoking activities then this tragedy could have been avoided. Unfortunately, the facility chose to cut costs on hiring staff and exposed an elderly woman to a needless risk leading to injuries and ultimately, her death.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of nursing home abuse. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

This is a classic example of the kind of nursing home abuse that passes for care at some of California’s assisted living facilities. A nursing home in Bakersfield, California that had been fined $100,000 in July for the death of one of its residents from choking on a ketchup packet, has announced its decision to appeal the fine.

The 84-year-old man was a patient at Glenwood Gardens, and apparently suffered from dementia, besides having respiratory problems. He also had a propensity to put non-edible things into his mouth, investigators later found. After he died in 2006, the embalmer at the mortuary found a ketchup packet wedged in his throat.

It was clear that the man had choked on the packet. Investigators were later able to confirm that he had a tendency to place things in his mouth. They also determined that there had been a failure on the part of the staff to monitor his eating practices. The state Department of Public Health imposed a fine of $100,000 in July.

Glenwood Gardens has now appealed the fine. According to its director, the facility could “find no grounds” for the fine. It’s hard to understand this attitude. This was a highly skilled care facility that, according to its own website, specialized in treating patients who suffered from dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Patients with advanced stages of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have problems swallowing food. They are recommending a pureed diet for precisely this reason. It’s obvious that this resident needed extra care and attention during feeding. It’s also obvious that care was sorely lacking at the facility. What were ketchup packets doing in the hands of a person with dementia?

Glenwood Gardens has a lot to answer for. If their response to the fine is that they can see absolutely no reason for one to be imposed on them, then it’s prudent to worry about the condition of the rest of the residents at the nursing home. As a highly skilled nursing home facility, they advertise the fact that they specialize in taking care of people with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and yet an elderly man who suffers from dementia was allowed to have a packet of ketchup in his hands. As long as there are facilities like Glenwood Gardens around, California nursing home abuse lawyers won’t find themselves out of work, it seems.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of nursing home abuse. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

A Social Security “representative payee” program that allows a third party to handle and cash checks on behalf of those elderly people who aren’t able to do it themselves, continues to have the potential to result in unchecked nursing home abuse in California, a report in CentreDaily.com says.

The anxiety about misuse of the program goes back to a case of elder abuse two decades ago when Dorothea Puente, a Scaramento boarding house owner, exploited residents at her unlicensed facility, milking them of their Social Security check payments, and physically abusing and killing several of them. The abuse, which sent shockwaves through the assisted care industry at the time it was discovered, went unnoticed for much of the eighties.

In the early part of the decade, Puente started her boarding home, a mom-and-pop version of a professionally-run assisted care facility. A boarding house can provide residents with food and shelter, but is not involved in providing medical care to residents. These boarding houses too are required to be licensed by the state, and local ordinances may call for separate registration. Puente’s boarding house had neither state nor local licensing.

The reasons for not applying for a license were easy to see. Puente had a previous record of convictions for theft and check forgery, including grand theft of a Social Security check. She had served three years in prison as a result of those convictions. With a record like that, Puente knew she would never be able to obtain a license, and she opened, and continued to operate her boarding house, under the radar of the law.

Puente’s abuse and misappropriation only came to light when a social worker checking up on a client, that she had admitted into Puente’s boarding house, couldn’t trace him. The police were called in, and began digging up the yard of the house. They found the bodies of four woman and three men. Investigations would later reveal that there were two other victims. Puente was sentenced to life without parole, and an appeal earlier this year was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

That incident of the most horrific kind of nursing home abuse was exposed back in 1988, but as some experts warn, the potential for misuse of Social Security checks by third parties, as Puente accomplished with such ease and for so long, is still present. States like California, where state inspections of nursing homes have decreased in recent years, are especially at risk. California recently enacted budget cuts that included snipping away funds for the Ombudsman Program, an important part of nursing home inspections. We can expect the quality and frequency of inspections to go down even further now, making the possibility of more cases like Puente’s, a not too distant possibility.

According to experts, it’s still far too easy for third parties to exploit the elderly and the helpless, who are incapable of handling their own finances. The lack of inspections that allowed Puente to get away with some of the most horrific kinds of elder abuse two decades ago, is still a reality, and it looks like nursing home abuse lawyers won’t have to wait long until the next Puente-style abuse story is enacted.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of nursing home abuse. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

As California grapples with a fiscal crisis that has caused the government to cut back on state-funded programs, one of the essential programs that have been axed is an essential one that helps prevent nursing home abuse in facilities across the country.

In a sign of how badly funding deficits affect ordinary citizens, Governor Schwarzenegger’s signed budget cuts snip funding to the Ombudsman Program, which works to prevent elder abuse incidents. Ombudsmen inspect nursing home facilities to make sure that everything is being run according to regulations, and that elders at the facilities are being looked after well. These ombudsmen also investigate instances of elder abuse in facilities in the state. However, budget cuts have meant that up to $3.8 million in essential funding to the program has been cut off.

Not surprisingly, staff members at certain nursing homes across the state are anxious about the consequences. They say that these ombudsmen were in many cases, the only ones who ensured that patients received quality care. In the absence of funding for the program, there could be more instances of abuse that go undetected.

The implications of the abrupt cancellation of all state funding to the program is bound to have severe effects on the safety of patients at nursing homes across the state. Already, staff has been forced to take pay cuts and reductions in benefits, but sooner or later, letting staff go will be the only way out. The program still receives some amount of federal funding, but the funds are limited in these perilous economic times, and the programs will have to look at private funding, donations and other avenues to make up for the shortfall. In an unprecedented economic downturn, in which even donations have dried up, it’s hard to tell how long this program will last, now that the oxygen supply of state funding has been so brutally cut.

This is just another instance of the most vulnerable sections of society feeling the pinch first when things go belly up. For three decades now, the Ombudsman Program has helped investigate cases of elder abuse in more than 1300 nursing homes in the state, not to mention the more than 8000 assisted living facilities around California.

The timing of the funding cut couldn’t be worse. The federal government recently released a report, decrying conditions in American nursing homes. At a time like this, to cut off state funding which is more than half of the funding that this program receives, is hasty and irresponsible. In the absence of these ombudsmen, who, we wonder will raise the alarm when elders are ill-treated at nursing homes in the state? Who will conduct regular spot inspections to make sure that conditions of care are as they are supposed to be? Who will watch out for these senior citizens, who the government has now thrown open to predators and abusers in these nursing homes? At a time when our nursing home system is already in need of serious oversight, and even an overall, to cut back on spending on a program that seems to be working quite well to reduce elder abuse incidents, is absurd.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of nursing home abuse. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

When 94-year-old Maria Cobian left the Palomar Heights Care Center in Escondido, she was wearing an ankle bracelet that was supposed to alert staff at the facility that she was leaving the premises. With the kind of negligence that was prevalent at the facility, it’s no surprise to anyone that the bracelet either didn’t function, or there was no diligent staff around to hear the alarm, even if it did go off. The result was that the woman, who has been described by her family as “sometimes” not being aware of her surroundings, walked right off the property and onto the road. She was hit by a car, and died instantly. The crash was the first sign that staff at the facility got that one of their own residents was in trouble.

Her family has now filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the facility. The lawsuit claims, quite rightfully, that the facility failed to provide safety and security for her, and failed to supervise her to the extent she needed to be. This was a woman who had problems earlier with leaving the premises. In fact, on the day of the tragedy, she had tried to escape the facility, and had been prevented by the staff from doing so. We wonder at the kind of nursing home neglect that could allow a 94-year-old woman, who was prone to dementia, to walk out of the nursing home and right onto traffic, without the slightest awareness from the staff. Then, we begin to look at the history of Palomar Heights, and it all begins to make perfect sense.

Palomar Heights has had a colorful history as Sunbridge Care and Rehabilitation Center. In 2004 it was cited twice for nursing home abuse, and in January 2004, a sting operation conducted by the state attorney general discovered extreme nursing home neglect and abuse of elders. The exposé led to at least 12 of the employees being accused of elder abuse. The charges were later dropped, and the facility changed hands and became the Palomar Heights Care Center.

Like old wine in a new bottle, Palomar Heights seems to have continued with the legacy begun by the facility under its former name. Last year, the nursing home received the very worst citation that the California Department of Health Services can give – the AA citation. That citation came after a 66-year-old resident at the nursing home was left alone on a patio smoking a cigarette, while he was connected to an oxygen machine. The fire that resulted burned the man for close to six minutes, singeing his face, arms, legs and torso. The man died, and the state ruled that nursing home neglect contributed to his death.

Now, this new elder neglect scandal threatens to be the final nail in the coffin. These nursing homes act as second homes for elders in our society, a place where they can live out their final years in dignity. What do they do with all the funding they receive if they can’t even make sure that their residents don’t leave the facility unsupervised? It is hard to imagine.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of nursing home abuse. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

When Mary Terry was moved from her home to a Florence hospital, the 62-year-old woman weighed less than 115 pounds, and her body was covered with bedsores. Hospital authorities later estimated she had not been fed in more than 30 days. The house she was living in was covered with human and rat feces, and reeked of urine and filth. Mary didn’t live long after being removed from her horrendous living conditions. She died in the hospital. At the time of her removal from her home, her son, Timothy Sims, and a nephew were caring for her. Both of them have been charged with elder abuse.

Now, a wrongful death lawsuit has been bought forth by Mary’s brother, Clarence Sims, against employees of the Department of Social Services. They claim that DSS workers who arrived at Mary’s home to provide care for her 82-year-old mother neglected to report the abuse and neglect that was taking place.

The DSS has been responsible for Mary’s care since 2001. Tim took over as his mother’s caregiver in 2005. The DSS failed to stop him, even after it was known that he had a history of alcoholism, battery and domestic violence.

The lawsuit names DSS caretaker Lisa Gibson and social worker Ada Antoine who were assigned to Mary’s case. They allege that the women, who visited the home at least 11 times in the 75 days before Mary was taken to the hospital, neglected to report that Mary was in a state of near death. Her son and nephew were effectively starving her. The lawsuit outlined a number of points that reveal the pitiful state of Mary Terry’s last hours. The stoves were not operational, and there was feces and filth all over the place. The DSS has stoutly denied any allegations of neglect.

Laws that relate to reporting when a case of abuse and neglect is taking place are there to provide extra protection for the vulnerable, like the elderly. When Mary Terry’s own son was failing in his duty to protect her, it fell upon the DSS to remain vigilant and look into any chances of possible elder abuse taking place under its own nose. How is it possible that the two caregivers could visit Terry’s home and care for her old mother, and never once notice Terry’s state? If the abuse had been reported on the first visit to the house, there are chances that Terry could have been removed from that offensive house, and put in a hospital as quickly as possible. She could have made a full recovery. When she was a bought to hospital, she was half dead.

The DSS has much to answer for, and frankly, we don’t think the answers are going to hold much of water.

If you have a loved one who has been the victim of nursing home abuse, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

Patients at Texas’ psychiatric hospitals face a grim reality, and an even grimmer future. Tales of abuse have been rampant across the state’s 10 mental hospitals, and as many as 70 employees have been fired in the last three years alone for abuse of mental patients. Apart from the ones who have had their services terminated, hundreds more have been suspended for abuse of patients. Many of the abuse cases are sexual in nature, while overmedication, restraining with padlocks and plain simple negligence are also widely reported.

According to an analysis by Dallas Morning News, abuse has even taken on the form of violence and beatings. One patient was manhandled by an employee, and dragged by his hair and feet. Another female patient was sexually abused by an employee.

The state’s mental hospitals, as well as the juvenile centers and disabled people’s homes, are all suffering from a malaise that covers all forms of neglect and abuse. As expected, there are plenty of fingers pointing in all directions, most notably the lack of funds. State run hospitals have suffered from chronic lack of funding, insiders say, resulting in the pathetic state of the hospitals. Sadly, the first persons who get dropped from the priority list when cash begins to get tight are the mental patients and the disabled, the most vulnerable of our society. It’s a cold reality.

The abuse at the state’s mental hospitals is even more disturbing than abuse of disabled persons or juveniles because these people very rarely have a strong support system of friends and family. They are usually not in very close contact with their family. Their mental status also makes it hard for them to remain on the radar of public consciousness. Their families have in many cases given up on them because of the chronic cycles of homelessness and incarceration that these people experience. Left to the mercy of the staff, many patients are coming to the stark realization that life within these walls is far from safe and comforting. It’s in many ways crueler than the realities outside.

Mental health advocates complain of the lack of funding. Over the past few years, at least $100 million in mental health funding has been cut in the state budget.

The parents of Jason Evans are looking for reasons for their son’s death, since lack of funding is a poor excuse. The 34-year-old bipolar disorder patient was found dead at a hospital a few days after he checked himself in. The cause of death is supposedly “natural,” but his parents suspect an intentional overdose on the part of the staff.

Lack of funding is a problem across health institutions in many parts of the country, but we cannot use that as an excuse to neglect and abuse mental patients. Because workers are over stressed or over burdened is no reason to take their frustrations out on helpless patients. Many of these incidents border on torture – one patient was hit on the head with a clipboard, and then kicked repeatedly. Another was tackled to the floor and had injuries to his face. We would cause a hue and cry over the treatment of animals in this fashion – it would be shameful if we maintained a frozen silence when human beings are treated this way.

If you have a loved one who has been the victim of abuse or neglect at an assisted living facility, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

It took extreme negligence to cause Donald Lee Bass’ death outside the Peachtree Manor assisted living facility in Winnsboro, South Carolina. This was a man who, despite having lost a leg and being confined to a wheelchair in his later years, was full of life. He had been a professional pool player, and he lifted weights. He planned on living life to the fullest, except that he hadn’t reckoned with staff at the residential home that he was staying at to be so grossly negligent.

On that fateful day in 2006, Bass’ nephew received a call from the facility that his uncle had been hit by a truck outside the facility, and he had died. It’s easy to imagine the utter confusion the family felt. What was their uncle, a wheelchair confined invalid, doing outside, and where were staff on that shift who were supposed to take care of him? Bass’ nephew, Joseph, asked the staff this question, but was given a cryptic “we can’t really say at this point” answer.

The answer, as it turns out, was shocking. Apparently one of the other residents, a man with psychological problems that the facility was aware of, had pushed Bass out into the highway. He had watched quietly as a truck hit the helpless man in the wheelchair causing his death.

Shocking as it was that another resident had done this to Bass, the family still sought answers to that same question - where were the staff members? How was a mentally unstable man able to push a wheelchair-confined Bass out on the highway without a single staff member being around to stop him?

WIS News 10 has covered the disturbing events at Peachtree Manor for a while now, and when you go through accounts of the events at the facility, you begin to feel a sense of dread for the other members living at the facility, and the outlook for them. According to the report, employers were constantly found sleeping on the job, and as they slept, residents swallowed razor blades and put themselves through other kinds of harm.

Not that you can blame any of the residents for wanting to mutilate themselves. Conditions at the facility, the report says, are horrendous to say the least. One resident apparently broke a window trying to flee what she called the inhumane treatment of the staff. Residents don’t get their medication on time, and are not fed well. The environment is depressing, and the facility constantly reeks of urine and feces. The expose uncovered at least 30 complaints from residents who were desperate to leave the facility.

For now, the facility‘s license has been revoked. Joseph Bass is currently looking at the possibility of suing the facility. Peachtree Manor’s owner, David Donnelly, insists that the whole world, including residents at his own facility, is lying.

It’s the sign of a society in decline if we allow such atrocities against its most vulnerable members to go unchecked. All people ask for when they enter an assisted living facility is to be able to live out their days in peace and dignity. At Peachtree Manor, it seems that is a little too much to ask for.

If you have a loved one who has been the victim of nursing home abuse, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

A grand jury has indicted nursing home rapist John Riems on 10 charges of abuse against patients in his care.

John Riems was a nurse at the Concord Care and Rehabilitation Center in Sandusky. The story of his abuse broke when a friend of one of his victims alerted the authorities. The victim was a 55-year-old blind and paralyzed man, and like many of Riems’ victims was unable to speak. And herein lies the despicability of his acts and the hindrance to making a case against him. With most of his victims either dead or unable to speak because of physical conditions like strokes, there’s no way to get witness testimony, making the case against Riems’ very hard indeed.

What’s worse is that Riems confessed to prosecutors that he had been abusing patients in his care for over twenty years! There is obviously a trail of abuse this man has left, and now investigators are trying to piece together the sordid tale which, it is now clear, has more victims.

Reims has admitted to at least 100 more such victims, and the number could be higher. He has worked at 13 facilities since the eighties, and now investigators are trying to locate other possible victims. If the patients there have the same health conditions as those at Concord Care that Reims preyed on, that is, unable to speak or express themselves, there will be more hard work for investigators.

When news of Riems’ depravity and abuse broke out, the nursing home Concord Care was quick to disassociate itself with any responsibility for what Reims did. They were as shocked as everybody else, they claimed, and admitted that Riems had been charged with inappropriate touching of his patients.

Well, being shocked just isn’t good enough. When you don’t have a problem charging patients and their families exorbitant fees to look after them, there can be no excuse for not following the most stringent verification checks before hiring an employee who would have such intimate access to patients. This was a man with a history of abuse by his own admission. It stands to reason that there must have been someone at the facilities he served at before he came to Concord Care who could have alerted them to Reims’ character.

Staff at Concord Care has confirmed that Riems was brusque with patients and quite impatient at times. In one instance, he reportedly neglected to send one of his charges for his regular dialysis session. He was also fond of mocking patients at the facility, staff says.

What one doesn’t understand is that if this man displayed all these tendencies, why was no action taken against him and why was he allowed to be around patients who were so fragile?

Concord Care has much to answer for, and they’ll have a chance to provide answers very soon. The facility has been cited by the Ohio Department of Health for violations including pressure sores on a resident, improper use of physical restraints and improper hydration of a resident. The facility also failed to provide care to patients who are fed through naso-gastric tubes, and failed to meet other accepted standards of care for residents.

If you have a loved-one who has been the victim of nursing home neglect or abuse, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.