New Jersey Nursing Home Residents Sue for Negligence, Hardship, and Wrongful Death after Home Closes without Notice

For months before the sudden shutdown, red flags about Princeton Care Center were apparent, including staffing shortages, unpaid bills, and poor ratings related to nursing home malpractice,

Eleven lawsuits have been brought against a New Jersey nursing home, all of which claim it illegally closed without proper notice, a NJ.com article reports. The lawsuits, brought by residents or their families, claim that the precipitous shuttering of doors at Princeton Care Center caused hardship and wrongful death, necessitating the securing of wrongful death attorneys and constituting a blatant act of nursing home malpractice.

In the state of New Jersey, the law dictates that a nursing home intending to close must submit a closure plan and give 60 days’ notice to residents. According to the article, the 72 residents of Princeton Care were given just hours of notice when Princeton Care announced it was closing last September. After the closure, says the article, the majority of the residents were placed in other nursing homes, where they promptly suffered mental deterioration trying to acclimate to new surroundings. Two of the residents died shortly after being relocated, unfortunately requiring their families to secure a wrongful death attorney.

The nursing home malpractice lawsuits against the home charge the facility’s owner, administrators, and health care providers with the following:

• Negligence
• Failure to safeguard residents
• Deviating from accepted standards of long-term care
• Failure to comply with federal and state regulations
• Failure to return funds held in residents’ personal needs accounts

Regarding Princeton Care’s sudden shutdown, New Jersey Health Department officials say the move was the legal consequence of emergency circumstances stemming from the collapse of a license transfer deal that would have rescued the financially struggling home; however, court documents and other records indicate the home was in serious financial and operating straits long before the shutdown, a perfect storm of conditions that create circumstances under which nursing home malpractice occurs and vulnerable residents suffer. The red flags were enumerated by the article as the following:

• Consistent poor ratings
• Hundreds of thousands in unpaid bills
• Millions in mounting losses
• Chronic staffing shortages
• Alleged breach of contract concerning lease payments not made for months

According to the Office of the State Comptroller, Princeton Care’s owner, Gail Bogner, has been made to renounce her stake in two other facilities earlier this year rather than risk the forfeiture of millions of dollars in federal funding necessary to keep those sites open. Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh said Bogner’s actions regarding Princeton Care were characterized by “recklessness, neglect, and incredibly poor judgment [that] caused serious harm and trauma to the residents of Princeton Care Center. It presents too serious of a risk to allow them to have influence over any other Medicaid-funded nursing homes.”

Fighting Against Nursing Home Neglect, Abuse, and Wrongful Death

Attorney Brian P. Murphy has dedicated his practice to upholding the safety and preserving the rights of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home residents. Your loved one should not fear that the facility he or she is comfortable in will close without notice, leaving him or her reeling. As a seasoned nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, Brian Murphy endeavors to hold accountable those Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing homes responsible for negligence and abuse and every kind of nursing home malpractice. Should you find yourself needing to contact a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, or if you need guidance in choosing a nursing home, call Brian Murphy today.

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Federal Funding Withdrawn Due to Nursing Home Neglect: Due to multiple violations of state law as well as a lack of concern for residents’ welfare, seven homes owned by a Louisiana nursing home owner have been cut off from receiving federal health care money.

A Louisiana nursing home owner whose seven homes were stripped of their state licenses after the owner evacuated hundreds of residents away from Hurricane Ida to a warehouse where they endured dangerous conditions has now been excluded from federal funding, says a U.S. News and World Report article.

In late May, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced via press release that, in light of the findings by the Louisiana Department of Health regarding the nursing homes owned by Bob Dean and the cruel neglect of the residents within them, the HHS would now be excluding the facilities from participation in federal health care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.

The Louisiana DOH was alerted to the facilities owned by Dean when, in the wake of Hurricane Ida in August 2021, complaints were made about the terrible conditions for the over 800 residents moved to a warehouse too small to accommodate them. State health inspectors were dispatched to inspect the site. Despite Dean’s efforts to prevent their inspection with threats and intimidation, inspectors found what the HHS later called “inhumane and squalid conditions.” In a building reeking of urine, residents were discovered lying on mattresses on the ground, their makeshift beds spaced only one foot apart and close to standing water. It was reported that many residents were either partially or fully naked, some of them isolated in soiled diapers and crying for help. Seven residents died. Citing multiple violations of state law as well as what HHS called “cruelty and indifference to the residents’ welfare,” the Louisiana DOH revoked the nursing home licenses for Dean’s homes.

The nursing homes owned by Bob Dean include the following:

• New Orleans—River Palms Nursing and Rehab and Maison Orleans Healthcare Center
• Jefferson Parish—Park Place Healthcare Nursing Home, West Jefferson Health Care Center and Maison DeVille Nursing home of Harvey
• Lafourche Parish—South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab
• Terrebonne Parish—Maison DeVille Nursing Home

As federal funding withdrawn due to nursing home neglect, Dean intends to appeal the state license revocations. If these appeals are successful, federal funding will be restored to his homes.

Holding Nursing Homes Responsible for Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse

Determining the quality and safety of the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives is essential. Meeting health and safety standards and to ensuring the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents is a requirement to which Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes must adhere. Should you have concerns about the quality of care in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Nursing Home Staffing Shortages Prevent Philadelphia Hospitals from Discharging Patients to Facilities:

The problem of assisted care understaffing came to the fore during January’s omicron COVID-19 surge as Philadelphia hospitals had nowhere to discharge their elderly patients.

In January, staff shortages at nursing homes and home-care companies were among the main issues contributing to an overload of patients in Philadelphia hospitals, says a Philadelphia Inquirer article. Philadelphia-area hospitals were forced to house an accumulation of patients needing nursing-home care when the rapid spread of the omicron variant among nursing home staff worsened the problem of assisted care understaffing in the area’s surrounding nursing homes.

Staffing shortages prevent Philadelphia hospitals from discharging patients which prompted the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, a Harrisburg trade group for nursing homes and other long-term care providers, to propose a strategy for increased nursing home staffing levels. The proposal suggested utilizing the Pennsylvania National Guard and federal resources to boost staffing in understaffed nursing homes with available beds.

January’s COVID-19 surge served to exacerbate an ongoing issue, as assisted care understaffing woes have plagued not only Philadelphia area nursing homes, but also the industry as a whole since before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Striving to increase nursing home staffing levels and working to resolve assisted care understaffing is paramount to the effort of ensuring sufficient resident care and preventing nursing home neglect. A case in point is the difficulty of preventing bedsores in nursing home residents when there is a shortage of nurses and nurse aides to help them. Since preventing bedsores essentially requires every bedsore-prone resident to be frequently repositioned in order to reduce long-term pressure against their skin, a nursing home must be able to scale its staff to meet this need. When a facility fails in preventing bedsores, nursing home neglect most likely has occurred.

Keeping Your Loved One Safe

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes should take every measure to preserve its residents against nursing home neglect or abuse, including providing adequate, quality staffing. Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. The development and/or deterioration of bed sores is indicative that nursing home neglect has occurred. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Discovered unable to pay, thousands of elderly and disabled nursing home residents across the nation have been sent packing.
Nursing Homes Evicting Elderly Poor – Illegally

According to a recent NBC News article, certain American nursing homes are discharging poorer residents from long-term care facilities against their will, sometimes without notice. Low-income, long-term residents dependent on Medicare or Medicaid who receive notice of a change in their coverage are being given their walking papers by some U.S. long-term care facilities.

“Most people don’t even know they have rights,” said AARP Foundation vice president Kelly Bagby who went on to say that while nursing homes sometimes give residents advance notice of their eviction, other times patients are [without warning] expected to find a new place to live.

Nursing homes may, under certain circumstances, legally evict residents. For example, if a resident’s health demonstrates a certain degree of improvement or, conversely, if a patient has needs beyond the scope of the facility, a nursing home may discharge that patient. Beyond health reasons, should a resident stop paying for long-term care and not apply for Medicaid or Medicare, that resident may be evicted; however, federal law dictates that facilities must give written notice 30 days in advance of an eviction. More, facilities are required by law to create a transition plan for residents and work with them to put them into action. At times these requirements are flouted, and in certain extreme cases, some nursing homes, says NBC News, have gone so far as to “dump” residents at homeless shelters.

According to the article, in 2017 long-term care ombudsmen—federally-mandated advocates for residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and care homes—received nearly 11,000 complaints about discharges and transfers, up from just over 9,000 in 2015. Many of these grievances, which Bagby suggested only hint at a deeper problem, go unaddressed rather than resulting in formal state investigations.

The NBC News article went on to suggest a trend in resident evictions: facilities will evict long-term residents who are low-income recipients of Medicaid and take in their place rehab patients covered by Medicare. The reason for this: even though rehabilitation patients stay for a shorter duration, the higher rate of Medicare reimbursement is far more lucrative for nursing homes. Despite the fact that discrimination against residents based on payment source is illegal, it “happens all the time,” according to California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform attorney Tony Chicotel, who said he receives daily calls to the nonprofit about residents who have been threatened with eviction.

Protect Your Loved One

Finding just the right nursing home for a beloved family member can be an arduous process. Once you’ve found a long-term solution, you want to be secure in the notion your loved one won’t be summarily evicted or otherwise stripped of his or her rights. If you or a family member have been discharged from a Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home or if you suspect abuse or neglect has occurred within a Philadelphia/PA or NJ facility where your loved one resides, don’t hesitate to contact nursing home neglect and abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to learn about your rights and legal options.

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