Elder Law

Disparate Nursing Home Care in Illinois

By Levin & Perconti

The wrongful death of an 85-year-old Chicago resident launched an investigation by The Chicago Reporter to determine the qualities of nursing home throughout the Illinois are. The investigation found that the specific South Side nursing home has the worst rating that any home can receive and that residents get less than half the time each day with staff than residents at a predominately white facility in Evanston which is operated by the same owner. If this nursing home negligence lawsuit is filed, it will be the 14th in Cook County court against the specific Schlossberg nursing home between 2004 and 2009. That?s more than three times the eldery neglgect lawsuits than half of the city?s 91 nursing homes, with the median number being four. Schlossberg has ownership in 30 homes in Illinois. An analysis of those homes revealed that there were racial disparities in the care that that resident?s received. Each of the three predominately black facilities received the lowest possible nursing home rating. The two facilities with the highest ratings had 84 percent white residents. Residents at the predominately black homes received much less staff time than residents of the white facilities. For example residents at the Evanston location received 5.53 hours of care per day, while the Harvey facility received 1.73 hours per day. The investigation also found that the disparities between black and white homes were even greater where at least 75 percent of care was paid by Medicaid. The idea that race plays a role a facility?s quality of care is greatly disturbing fact recovered by this investigation.

To read more about the disparities in nursing homes, please click the link.

For a map of the Schlossberg nursing homes in the Chicago land area, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on May 30, 2009 (boomark / email).