Personal Injury Law

Etowah, TN Nursing Home Abuse Halts Admissions

Etowah Health Care Center, a 120-bed nursing home in Etwoah, TN, has been ordered by Tennessee Department of Health to cease admissions after alleged physical nursing home abuse by one female nursing home staff member. Fines against the nursing home for violating residents? rights have been levied and local investigations into the criminal abuse concluded. Tennessee Department of Health officials have assigned a special monitor to review the Etowah, TN nursing home?s operations.

The abuse charges are being made against 37 year-old Joyce Stanley, a certified nursing assistant who allegedly struck a blind nursing home resident with a clipboard and an incontinence pad. The resident was also slapped and had her hair pulled, though it is unclear from reports when these incidents of abuse occurred. Stanley has been charged by local police with willful and physical abuse and fired from the nursing home.

The abused patient is reported as having suffered no lasting physical harm. Since the nursing home receives Medicare, Medicaid, and VA patients, federal authorities are also conducting a federal investigation of the Tennessee nursing home. No confirmation as of this writing if corrective measures have been taken against other nursing home employees who failed to immediately report the abuse.

Again, as in other nursing home abuse cases Tennessee Law Blog has reported, other nursing home staff was complicit with, or at least kept quiet about, the alleged abuse.

For more information on Tennessee nursing home abuse law, contact our Nashville law offices online or call us at 800-705-2121 for a free consultation with Higgins Firm attorneys to discuss your legal options.

Full post as published by Tennessee Law Blog on November 28, 2008 (boomark / email).