Elder Law

Repeated Nursing Home Negligence in Evergreen Park

By Levin & Perconti

Recently, our Chicago nursing home abuse attorneys at Levin & Perconti filed suit against the Evergreen Health Care Center in Evergreen Park, Illinois. The Chicago Tribune recently reported on the case.

Cordelia Lee was an intelligent, active, former postal worker and homemaker who lived alone for over a decade after her husband?s death. However, after being diagnosed with blood clots, Ms. Lee checked into Evergreen to receive closer care to help in the healing process.

To deal with the blood clots she was diagnosed a powerful anti-coagulant medication, Coumadin, which requires close monitoring. From the beginning Evergreen staff was negligent it is treatment. They failed to provide proper oversight of Ms. Lee?s prescription, missing doses, failing to keep a log charts, and failing to inform her doctor of abnormal test results. It didn?t take long before Ms. Lee began suffering stomach pains from the inadequate care. Ultimately, only a week after arriving at Evergreen, Cornelia died from bleeding in her lower abdominal cavity.

Cornelia is not the only victim of Evergreen?s negligent care to Illinois seniors.

We had previously initiated a lawsuit against the nursing home to fight for a 77 year old victim of abuse at the facility who died because of Evergreen?s failure to monitor and treat pressure sores. Pressure sores are almost always preventable with proper bathing and repositioning of the body, and their development is typically an indication that a resident is receiving inadequate care.

Our Levin & Perconti attorneys are not the only ones who are fighting to protect residents at Evergreen, as Illinois health officials recently moved to revoke the license of the negligent nursing home. State authorities noted even more repeated examples of serious neglect at the facility from the failure of staff to report the worsening of a resident?s pneumonia to their allowing maggots to infect the scalp of a wounded patient. There is clearly a history of severe abuse at Evergreen, and serious steps need to be taken to vindicate past victims and prevent future harm to its elderly residents.

The clear, repeated examples of abuse make it all the more shocking that an Illinois politician actually had an ownership interest in the Evergreen Health Care Center. According to the Tribune, State Senator Heather Steans and her family maintained an interest in the facility, though Sen. Steans divested her interest once the abuses at Evergreen became public. In any event, it surprising that anyone involved in protecting the rights of vulnerable seniors in Illinois would have any connection to the repeated and extreme examples of nursing home neglect at Evergreen.

As our nursing home attorney Steve Levin noted in the Chicago Tribune, ?Frankly, it?s shocking that somebody who has been an advocate for nursing home reform has an ownership in a home that has a repeated background of citations.?

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on July 01, 2010 (boomark / email).