Elder Law

Illinois Continues Nursing Home Safety Push

By Levin & Perconti

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan stated that both her office and the local police are intensifying their efforts to protect nursing home residents by making unannounced visits and conducting broad safety checks at troubled Illinois nursing homes. Criminal investigators have joined with Chicago police to examine nursing home records to uncover unregistered felons and sex offenders living within the facilities. They are also interviewing residents and staff at those facilities with histories of serious safety breaches. Madigan?s chief of staff stated that the current regulatory system has proved itself incapable of any type of rapid response to violations.

Governor Quinn is also working to introduce a comprehensive package of nursing home safety-reform bills. This is after Quinn?s Nursing Home Safety Task Force completed a 52-page plan to overhaul to state?s troubled long-term system that includes nursing homes housing more than 3,000 patients with felony records. The task force has met with representatives of the state?s largest nursing-home association as well as advocates for both the mentally ill and the elderly. It has recommended screening of people admitted to nursing homes by identifying those with criminal backgrounds. This will help decrease the amount of in-resident nursing home abuse.

The task force was initiated in response to a Chicago Tribune?s investigation documenting the rapes and attacks at Illinois nursing homes. If you or a loved one has been of victim of nursing home abuse, please contact a Chicago nursing home lawyer. To learn more about the new nursing home task force, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on February 28, 2010 (boomark / email).