Updated: Second Death At Massachusetts Nursing Home

Posted March 24, 2016 9:12 PM ET; Last updated April 12, 2016 8:53 PM ET


Woodbriar Health Center Does Not Sound Too Healthy

[From article]

Officials have imposed critical sanctions on a nursing home in Wilmington and blamed a second resident death on substandard care, according to The Boston Globe.
The Massachusetts Department of Health ordered Woodbriar Health Center to stop accepting new patients and recommended fines as high as $10,000 a day. Regulators also threatened to terminate Woodbriar from the Medicare and Medicaid programs—which pay most of the center’s bills—if conditions do not improve by April, according to the Globe.
The health agency’s recommendations came after investigators looked into the death of a resident who fell the night of Feb. 8 and was discovered dead the next morning. The state says the facility’s staff failed to follow physician’s instructions to regularly check on the resident throughout the night. Woodbriar was already under investigation for another resident’s death in December after a nursing aid improperly used a mechanical lift and dropped her.

https://www.boston.com/news/health/2016/03/24/after-second-death-wilmington-nursing-home

Regulators: Wilmington nursing home residents in ‘immediate jeopardy’
By Hunter Harris
March 24, 2016

* * *


Mary E. Meuse

[From article]
Mary Meuse was all set to visit her family on Christmas. Two days later, the 83-year-old resident of Woodbriar Health Center in Wilmington was dead.
A certified nursing assistant using a mechanical lift to move Meuse from her bed to a wheelchair Christmas morning violated a cardinal safety rule, according to a former Woodbriar staffer and a report the nursing home filed with Massachusetts regulators.
Most mechanical lifts require at least two people for safe operation, according to the Food and Drug Administration. But the 21-year-old nursing aide, with no assistance, improperly placed Meuse in the lift, according to the report, and Meuse slipped out, crashed to the ground, and broke both legs.
Meuse, who was on blood-thinning medication for heart problems, was not sent to a hospital until the next day. By then, she was bleeding internally. She died in the hospital Dec. 27.
The Christmas Day accident raises new concerns about the quality of care provided by the company that owns Woodbriar, Synergy Health Centers.
[. . .]
Those same records show that the wrong urinary catheters were ordered for one patient and that a nurse failed to wash her hands before giving medicine to another patient.
The Globe has previously reported that the New Jersey-based company was able to secure a license for Woodbriar with little scrutiny from regulators.
[. . .]
Meuse’s death certificate states she died from “complications of blunt force trauma” and pointed out that she was on blood-thinning medications for heart problems. The certificate noted that Meuse died as a direct result of her injuries.
Meuse’s daughter, Brenda Murray, said her younger sister, Sandra, visited the nursing home late Christmas afternoon and was assured by a staffer that X-rays taken after the accident showed no broken bones.
“We were told everything was OK,” Murray said.
It wasn’t until her phone rang at 8 a.m. the next day that she was told by a nursing home worker Meuse was in considerable pain and needed to go to the hospital immediately, Murray said.
“We didn’t find out her legs were broken until we got to the hospital,” Murray said.
Meuse, a retired nurse who once cared for nursing home residents, hadn’t wanted to create a fuss for her family on Christmas. A vibrant woman who loved all sorts of animals — she had a pet iguana in her assisted living apartment — Meuse said she didn’t want to be hospitalized on Christmas. On that point, Meuse’s family and the report Woodbriar submitted to state regulators agree.
Woodbriar’s report does not include a precise timeline of the events. It does, however, note that shortly after the accident, Woodbriar staff “advised” Meuse’s 22-year-old granddaughter, who was waiting to take her grandmother home for Christmas, that Meuse should be taken to the hospital for evaluation. The report notes that a staffer repeated the recommendation for hospitalization when the granddaughter called Murray to report what happened but says “all agreed with the resident’s wishes, and decided to remain at the facility.”
The report also indicates that the nursing home did not take X-rays until some time after the decision was made to not hospitalize Meuse on Christmas.
[. . .]
Serious injuries and deaths from falls in nursing homes are not unique to Synergy-owned facilities. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 1,800 deaths every year involving nursing home residents who fell.
But Woodbriar stands out, with nearly twice the state and national averages for the percent of falls resulting in major injuries among long-term residents, according to the latest data from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The numbers show that 5.9 percent of Woodbriar’s residents had a fall resulting in major injury, compared to 3 percent of nursing home residents statewide, between Oct. 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015. Synergy owned the nursing home during the final four months of that nine-month period.
[. . .]
Registered nurses receive substantially more training and education than other nurses and are generally expected to do more critical thinking on the job.
“Additionally, [Woodbriar is] below the national and state average for nurse-aide hours,” Haemer said. “This is concerning as nurse aides provide the hands-on support for most nursing homes.”
It was a nursing assistant, working alone, who dropped Meuse from the mechanical lift. Haemer said most manufacturers require at least two workers to operate a mechanical lift — one to ensure the resident is safely secured in the sling-style machine, while the other operates the controls.
Kay Lazar can be reached at Kay.Lazar (at) globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKayLazar.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/18/death-resident-after-nursing-home-accident-raises-new-concerns-about-company/opPd0TMprgB21WN8Wmd6ZI/story.html

Death at Wilmington nursing home raises new questions
By Kay Lazar

Boston GLOBE STAFF

JANUARY 19, 2016

US Government Study Reveals Extensive Abuses Prescribing Psychiatric Drugs To Vulnerable Persons

[From article]
The release in late March of an alarming new report by federal investigators has confirmed in shocking new detail what has been known for years: Poor and foster care kids covered by Medicaid are being prescribed too many dangerous antipsychotic drugs at young ages for far too long -- mostly without any medical justification at all. The report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General examined in depth nearly 700 claims filed in 2011 in five of the biggest prescribing states -- California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and New York -- and discovered that two thirds of all the prescribing with these popular and costly "second generation antipsychotics" (SGAs) raised high-risk "quality of care" concerns.
The new report noted several disturbing examples, just a few months after an overmedicated teen in foster care, Steven Unangst, died in Antioch, California. The report cited a 10-old-year with ADHD given an antipsychotic -- without any medical documentation -- mixed in with other psych drugs; a 4-year-old on four psychotropic drugs, including two antipsychotics; and a 16-year-old with bipolar disorder on six psychiatric medications, including variously three antipsychotics. Among the side effects of this polypharmacy assault: "This child experienced paranoia, hostility, unstable mood, hallucinations, and suicidal thoughts. This child also experienced significant side effects potentially resulting from the prescribed drugs, including a 22-pound weight gain, insomnia, and edema (swelling) of hands and feet."
Perhaps even more damning, the report found, 92 percent of all kids on Medicaid receiving antipsychotics don't have any of the limited "medically accepted pediatric conditions" supposedly justifying their use. These "accepted conditions" include the authority to use antipsychotics even for autistic children as young as 5 for such dubious FDA-approved conditions as "irritability."
[. . .]
Medicaid spends about $3.5 billion a year on antipsychotics for all ages, largely for unaccepted uses, with nearly 2 million kids prescribed them.
[. . .]
But Medicaid programs are generally all too glad to look the other way at such antipsychotic spending run amok. Why? "They're not willing to go up against the doctors or the pharmaceutical industry," says Jim Gottstein, a crusading Alaska-based attorney with the Psychrights.org advocacy group; although he hasn't won a whistleblower fraud lawsuit yet, he has been pursuing legal strategies -- with the recent go-ahead of a federal appeals court -- to force state and federal Medicaid programs to follow federal law and to stop paying for fraudulent, unproven uses of the antipsychotics.
[. . .]
it shouldn't be surprising to learn that federal officials aren't too keen on enforcing drugging protections for either nursing home residents (whose meds are usually paid by Medicare) or children on Medicaid. "The federal government has done absolutely nothing of significance to rein in overprescribing,"
[. . .]
One sign of federal indifference, I have found, is that in 2012 the federal government touted to state agencies a Texas prescription monitoring program then so lax that Texas foster care children were 52 more times likely to be prescribed five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time than non-foster children, according to the GAO and a stinging ABC News report in 2011, based on the latest available data. But the Texas drugging "parameters," which helped turn too many kids into drooling, tremor-ridden "zombies," were lauded by ACF in 2012
[. . .]
the guidelines panel originally praised by HHS was stacked with two drug company-subsidized academics cited in court records for helping defraud Medicaid -- and an accused child-molester psychiatrist who was fired from a state hospital and is now facing sexual assault charges involving five minors in his care.
[. . .]
Jo Angel Rodriguez, a troubled 11-year-old girl who bounced around the foster care system until her death in 2009 that prompted a wrongful death lawsuit; it was quietly settled in 2013 with Pfizer, the maker of the antipsychotic Geodon. As reported by the San Antonio Current, she was taken to the Laurel Ridge treatment center and was first given the antipsychotic Abilify, which caused vomiting and diarrhea, then spurred withdrawn and later aggressive behavior. Solution? More drugs:

[. . .]

A key component of creating the impression of scientific evidence for both TMAP and the foster care "parameters" was a series of rigged, skewed and ghost-written studies funded by Johnson and Johnson's Janssen division. Their goal: to tout the effectiveness of Risperdal while downplaying side effects, including weight gain, diabetes and male breast growth due to elevated prolactin levels.
Indeed, just two months ago, a Philadelphia jury found that Janssen hid the breast-growth dangers of the drug Risperdal and owed $2.5 million to a 20-year-old autistic man who developed size 46 DD breasts as a teenager.

[. . .]

In yet another egregious example of ghostwriting outlined by Rothman, Excepta Medica drafted a study purportedly showing that Risperdal was the established treatment in children and adolescents with severe behavioral disorders and then went looking for some key opinion leaders (KOLs) to attach their names to the article. They finally found Dr. Peter Jensen, a pediatric psychiatrist (who was paid more than $80,000 by J&J in consulting and speaking fees between 2002 and 2004) to attach his name to the study, which was published in The European Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2007, again with no acknowledgement of the ghostwriter's role. Rothman cites example after example of overlap between the ghostwriter's draft and the published piece and concludes that "the authors improperly put their name on it and failed to credit EM's work."

[lots more]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/feds-pay-for-drug-fraud-9_b_6966454.html

Art Levine
Contributing Editor, The Washington Monthly
Feds Pay for Drug Fraud: 92 Percent of Foster Care, Poor Kids Prescribed Antipsychotics Get Them for Unaccepted Uses
Posted: 04/30/2015 9:07 am EDT Updated: 04/30/2015 12:59 pm EDT

New York Nursing Home Aide Punches 80-year-old Resident

Pugilist Marie Jeanty, 59 (left); 80-year-old Abuse Victim (right).

[From article]
Marie Jeanty, 59, who lives in the neighborhood, told the woman at the West Lawrence Care Center on Aug. 15, 2014, to move so she could change her clothing and bedding – but then allegedly pushed her, punched her in the arm and shoulder and slammed her face into the railing, authorities said.
The woman was taken to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital with a black eye and significant bruising and swelling to her arm and head.
Jeanty, who no longer works at the facility at 1410 Seagirt Boulevard, was charged with felony second-degree assault; second-degree endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person, or an incompetent or physically disabled person; and willful violation of health laws, a misdemeanor.
[. . .]
If convicted on the top count, Jeanty faces up to seven years in state prison.
“When New Yorkers place those who mean the most to them in a nursing home, they should have confidence that their loved ones are not in danger of severe physical abuse,”

http://nypost.com/2015/04/02/nurses-aide-pummeled-80-year-old-patient-at-home/

Nurse’s aide ‘pummeled’ 80-year-old patient at home
By Matt McNulty, Georgett Roberts and Yaron Steinbuch
New York Post
April 2, 2015 | 1:15pm

Personal and Medical Records of Vulnerable Persons Sold to Businesses

Cattle market: At least a dozen councils are listing vulnerable people’s details – including their age and what care and medication they need – on eBay-like software and inviting bids from local care homes (file photo)
[From article]
The elderly and disabled are being ‘put up for auction’ by local councils on ‘eBay-style’ websites, with care firms then bidding to offer them a bed.
At least a dozen local authorities are listing vulnerable people’s details – including their age and what care and medication they need – before inviting bids from care homes in the area.
The bidding is sometimes open for only a few hours, at other times it can last for two or three days. The cheapest offer often wins.
[. . .]
Radio 5 Live also found that in some cases in Birmingham elderly people were being sent to homes which won the online auction despite being ‘zero-rated’ by the council on its own 0-100 scale of care quality – where scores under 60 are ‘poor’.
Les Latchman, chairman of the Birmingham Care Consortium, which represents care homes in Birmingham and commissioned the FOI request, said the system was forcing providers to offer lower and lower prices to secure the contract.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2945079/Old-people-auctioned-care-homes-internet-Anger-cattle-markets-grannies-councils-accept-lowest-bids-save-cash.html

Old people auctioned off to care homes on the internet: Anger over 'cattle markets for grannies' as councils accept lowest bids to save cash
At least a dozen local authorities are listing vulnerable people's details
Ages and care needs including medication sent to up to 100 care firms
They pick which people to bid for - and cheapest offer nearly always wins
Expert Ros Altmann: 'eBay-style' system 'awful' and 'just uncivilised'
Health group leader: 'It's an absolute disgrace - it's like a cattle market'
By RUTH LYTHE and CLAIRE DUFFIN FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 17:56 EST, 8 February 2015 | UPDATED: 06:42 EST, 9 February 2015

Nursing Homes Take Legal Control of Residents To Collect Fees

Photographs of the Palermos from the late 1960s. Mrs. Palermo, now 90, has been living at the nursing home since 2010. 

Credit Nina Bernstein/The New York Times
[From article]
Lillian Palermo tried to prepare for the worst possibilities of aging. An insurance executive with a Ph.D. in psychology and a love of ballroom dancing, she arranged for her power of attorney and health care proxy to go to her husband, Dino, eight years her junior, if she became incapacitated. And in her 80s, she did.
[. . .]
But one day last summer, after he disputed nursing home bills that had suddenly doubled Mrs. Palermo’s copays, and complained about inexperienced employees who dropped his wife on the floor, Mr. Palermo was shocked to find a six-page legal document waiting on her bed.
[. . .]
Hunter College researchers found more than 12 percent were brought by nursing homes. Some of these may have been prompted by family feuds, suspected embezzlement or just the absence of relatives to help secure Medicaid coverage. But lawyers and others versed in the guardianship process agree that nursing homes primarily use such petitions as a means of bill collection — a purpose never intended by the Legislature when it enacted the guardianship statute in 1993.
At least one judge has ruled that the tactic by nursing homes is an abuse of the law, but the petitions, even if they are ultimately unsuccessful, force families into costly legal ordeals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/nyregion/to-collect-debts-nursing-home-seizing-control-over-patients.html?_r=0

To Collect Debts, Nursing Homes Are Seizing Control Over Patients
By NINA BERNSTEIN

JAN. 25, 2015

Disabled WWII Veteran, Beaten in New York Nursing Home

Robert Brogan, a World War II veteran, was allegedly attacked while at a state veterans home in St. Albans.

See, I am not the only elder person being beaten and harassed by young criminals. The billions of taxpayer funds spent on human services protections is mostly a waste of money. In Massachusetts these alleged protectors of vulnerable persons stand by and watch as sadistic academic research psychologists and psychiatrists attack their patients without consent, contrary to law, without compassion or sensitivity. These alleged healers are criminal brutes who know the lingo saying they care about the people they abuse. They are worse and more dangerous than police criminals who are known to abuse their power. Psychiatrists have an image as caregivers, and police agencies will not address their abuses. Often they are employed by police agencies and crime families to destroy the spirit and the lives of unpopular persons for political and/or personal purposes.

[From article]
Marine veteran Robert Brogan survived World War II to suffer repeated horrific injuries in a Queens nursing home for ex-soldiers. And no one can explain what happened.
Brogan, 87, moved into the New York State Veterans Home at St. Albans — a 250-bed facility run by the state Health Department — a year ago because of worsening dementia. His wife, Dorothy, is ill.


An injury allegedly suffered by Brogan while at the nursing home.


[. . .]
John Constantino called the NYPD’s 113th Precinct station house on Wednesday. A detective referred him to the state attorney general, who has probed nursing-home abuses, he said.
After Brogan’s head injury in September, the nursing director told the family that alarms would be put on his bed to alert the staff when he got up, so they could check in on and attend to him.
“When we went in the room, we found the battery for the alarm on the floor,” Colleen Constantino said. “The safety system they have in place is not working — especially at night when all these incidents occur.”



A head wound allegedly suffered by Brogan while at a veterans nursing home.

http://nypost.com/2014/11/30/wwii-veteran-allegedly-attacked-at-nursing-home/

WWII veteran allegedly attacked at nursing home
By Susan Edelman
New York Post
November 30, 2014 | 4:51am

Kansas Man Sues For Freedom From Nursing Home

[From article]
Flentie is upfront about taking numerous medications, including several for bipolar disorder, which he said he has managed well for 20 years. His prescriptions include Prozac, Elavil, Risperdal and Lamictal. He takes two other medications for prostate problems, one for blood pressure, and a battery of vitamins.
[. . .]
In late November 2011, he fell, followed within a few days by another fall in early December.
[. . .]
At St. Luke’s North Hospital, two doctors in quick course evaluated Flentie and diagnosed him with bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms and dementia.
[. . .]
The next day, McNellis examined Flentie again and in court papers declared, “Mr. Flentie is not competent to care for himself.”
Nor did he think Flentie was competent to take care of his own finances.
Given the option to choose whether Flentie was “disabled” or “partially disabled,” McNellis wrote “Yes, disabled” by virtue of dementia and bipolar disorder. He recommended that Flentie be placed in “assisted living” as the most appropriate and least restrictive environment.
[. . .]
Flentie was placed under full guardianship, his assets under conservatorship, and never returned to his home.
From the hospital, he went directly to a residential care facility. At that point, he began his two-year battle for his freedom, aided by friends.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article640180.html

The saga of John Flentie: Platte County man fights against his guardianship
BY ERIC ADLER

THE KANSAS CITY STAR
06/28/2014 3:59 PM 06/28/2014 7:17 PM

Holocaust Survivors Home In Chicago

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485311/They-shared-unimaginable-horrors-hands-Nazis-12-residents-left-Chicago-retirement-home-Holocaust-survivors.html

They shared unimaginable horrors at the hands of the Nazis, now only 12 residents are left at the Chicago retirement home for Holocaust survivors
Chicago's Selfhelp Home opened its doors to Jewish refugees more than 60 years ago
Last generation who suffered under Hitler find comfort in their twilight years
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 18:13 EST, 2 November 2013 | UPDATED: 18:28 EST, 2 November 2013

Nursing Home Employee Guilty Of Murdering Elder Veteran

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/janitor_convicted_living_beating_WpLEKc19CqzM5iqjPfkkcL

Janitor convicted of beating & strangling 95-year-old man at assisted living home
By LAURA ITALIANO and YASMINE PHILLIPS
New York Post
Last Updated: 12:01 AM, May 8, 2013
Posted: 8:17 PM, May 7, 2013

Caregiver Sentenced For Theft of $90,000

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20121101springfield_health_aide_sentenced_for_stealing/

Springfield health aide sentenced for stealing
Boston Herald
By Associated Press
Thursday, November 1, 2012

Taxpayer Funds Don't Protect Older Vulnerable Citizens

Americans place little to no value on older people. Children throw parents away into warehouses called nursing homes. Shame on the politicians who take contributions from the nursing home lobbyists and the human services lobbyists who exploit vulnerable older persons to make money. How many billions of taxpayer funds go to the human services industrial complex each year in NY? Protect people instead of enriching the caring professions.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/sad_elderly_apartment_plunge_Bg3a20paJOM3gm2AXp1utK#comments

Sad elderly apartment plunge
By JESSICA SIMEONE
New York Post
Last Updated: 6:15 PM, January 16, 2011
Posted: 6:14 PM, January 16, 2011