Elder Law

Neglected nursing home residents wonder why Atria Senior Living CEO gets multi-million dollar raise instead of providing better care

By Levin & Perconti

Atria Senior Living is a chain of nursing homes with 130 facilities across the country. The nursing home chain is owned by Lazard Ltd, a corporation that has just given its CEO Bruce Wasserstein a new contract where he will be paid over $41 million for 2007 and over $100 million overall. The staff at Atria Senior Living homes nationwide is underpaid and overworked, just like many assisted living facilities across the country. Employees have reported that the average salary is about $8-10 an hour and that the company-provided healthcare plans are too costly to afford. Nursing home abuse and neglect is a widespread problem in the US and many of these issues are due to understaffing, inadequately trained staff or overworked employees. Nursing homes owned by private equity firms, like Atria Senior Living homes, have even worse statistics. These firms often claim that it is financially too difficult to afford more staff, proper training, or better hours but the case of Mr. Wasserstein is a perfect example of these firms valuing their profits over the wellbeing of residents and employees. The family members of Atria residents are also left perplexed as their loved ones are being neglected and hoping for better care while money that could be used to improve standards of care is going to make millionaires even richer.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on February 12, 2008 (boomark / email).