National chain of homes target of many suits
Verdicts include one for $95 million
Juries are making known their displeasure over nursing home negligence and abuses by awarding multimillion-dollar judgments. Wound care has figured prominently in many of the numerous lawsuits filed against Fort Smith, AK-based Beverly Enterprises, one of the largest operators in the country, with about 570 nursing homes in its system. Some of the cases have resulted in enormous monetary damage awards. Among them:
· Last fall, a jury found Beverly responsible for negligence, gross negligence, and intentional fraud in the death of an elderly woman entrusted to the care of the company's Borger (TX) Health Care Center. The case was initiated by the victim's family and supported by the National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform. An award of $13 million in actual damages and $70 million in punitive damages was handed down. The case involved a virtually immobile 84-year-old woman who died of dehydration and infected and neglected pressure ulcers while living at the nursing home.
· At the company's facility in Yreka, CA, a 69-year-old woman's shoulder and hip were broken while she was being moved from her bed. A jury found Beverly guilty of negligence, abuse, and fraud, and awarded the claimant a $95.1 million judgment. The amount was the largest against a nursing home to date, and the fourth judgment of more than $70 million against nursing homes within four months.
Beverly's attorneys continue to deny any wrongdoing in all of the cases that have been brought against the company.
· An elderly woman residing at the Creekside Convalescent Hospital (not a Beverly facility and now known as Vacaville Rehabilitation and Care Center), about 50 miles north of San Francisco, developed multiple pressure ulcers after lying in a soiled, wet bed. Staff rarely turned or repositioned the immobile patient. An ulcer on the woman's upper left thigh turned into a gaping wound. Surgery eventually was required to remove her left buttock and part of her pelvis. A nurse at the facility testified that staff members were washing dirty bedpans in a whirlpool tank because the washing machine was broken. The patient had been bathed repeatedly in the same whirlpool. The facility reportedly denied investigators access to medical records until they returned with a subpoena.
These are the kinds of cases that catch headlines, but most nursing home lawsuits never make it to trial, according to David Soloway, an attorney with the law firm Frazier, Soloway and Poorak in Atlanta, which regularly represents claimants against nursing homes. Soloway cites a couple of examples from his own practice to illustrate the more typical scenarios that occur when claims are filed against nursing homes:
· An elderly male patient had been cared for in the home by family members. He had no pressure ulcers and no signs of skin breakdown at the time. In preparation for a month of traveling, the family placed their ill relative in a nursing home. Within 30 days after admission, the patient developed a stage IV pressure wound. The case was settled out of course with a six-figure award to the claimant.
· An elderly man residing in a nursing home developed several pressure ulcers. His wife tried in vain to find out why they had appeared and what was being done to heal them. She received no satisfactory explanation. The nursing home refused to order a special support surface, and resorted to a foam "egg crate" mattress covering. "The nursing home told her that [the egg crate] was as good as a 'fancy bed,'" says Soloway. But the wife wouldn't accept that solution. She took it upon herself to attend a dermal wound management conference and asked someone from the nursing home to accompany her. The nursing home refused, though the cost of attendance was only $50. Ultimately, the wounds became infected and the patient died of the resulting sepsis. The out-of-court settlement also was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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