Elder Law

Nursing Home Closed After Abuse and Neglect

By Levin & Perconti

Another nursing home is being closed amid continuous examples of substandard care, dangerous negligence, and unabashed elder abuse reports First Coast News. The Glenwood Nursing Center in Arlington, Florida is being shut down by the state?s Department of Health, in a rare move spurred by repeated examples of inadequate care by the nursing home staff members.

The one hundred residents in the home will be relocated and nursing home administrators may be fined $25,000 on top of the closure after state officials conducted an unannounced visit to the home earlier this year. Investigations during the visit revealed unsupervised and dangerous facility. Residents were falling at an alarming rate; there were several instances of resident on resident abuse and many examples of dangerous resident wandering. One patient was actually able to leave the facility and reach the next county before he was recovered.

State officials explain that the nursing home administrators were well aware of many of the problems at the facility but simply chose not to fix them. It is one thing for an unavoidable accident to occur at a facility, but it is a totally different matter when those in charge of the facility knowingly allow dangerous situations to persist.

Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti applaud all decisions which better protect the vulnerable seniors in our nursing homes. Too often, dangerous facilities like Glenwood are allowed to continue operations, harming more and more elderly residents. A strong message needs to be continually sent to nursing home administrators, medical staff, and other assistants, that inadequate care will never be tolerated. Friends and family of nursing home residents are often a key source in providing information that holds negligent nursing homes accountable. If you have any suspicions about inadequate care at a nearby facility, be sure to contact our office or a similar office to learn more about your options.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).