For-Profit Nursing Home Neglect Amid Pandemic: Severe understaffing within for-profit nursing home chains led to poor care, nursing home neglect, and a negative impact on the health of residents. About 70% of nursing homes in the US are run by for-profit operators.

According to a report by the House of Representatives’ Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, deplorable conditions amounting to nursing home malpractice persisted inside for‑profit nursing home chains early on in the pandemic. The Select Subcommittee also released documents illuminating how opaque corporate structures used by these nursing home chains possibly helped these companies to cut corners, shirk responsibility, and obscure profits.

Using documents obtained during its investigation of five for-profit chains that had significant Covid outbreaks across 850 homes housing around 80,000 residents, the Select Subcommittee revealed the following four key findings, which are examples of nursing home malpractice:

• As a result of severe shortage of nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) early on in the pandemic, many nursing home residents were subjected to deficient care and nursing home neglect, which negatively impacted their health.
  • Some nursing homes reported staff ratios ranging between 35 and 39 residents to one nurse.
  • Specific examples of the effects of this understaffing included a resident in Nevada who had to wait two days for a shower after vomiting on herself, and an elderly patient who developed a pelvic infection after continued delays in receiving bathroom insistence.

Nursing home understaffing is often tied to negligent care within nursing homes and is considered to be nursing home malpractice.

This for-profit nursing home neglect amid pandemic as the result of understaffing can lead to nursing home illnesses, injuries, and even death, which would require the intervention of a wrongful death attorney.

• Workers in for-profit nursing home chains were not provided with sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE).
  • As a result of not receiving adequate PPE, numerous nursing home employees were forced to share PPE or craft their own protective equipment out of makeshift supplies.
  • In one Texas facility, residents were denied masks and instead given ill-fitting and ineffective “handkerchiefs.”

The lack of necessary PPE during the coronavirus pandemic placed at risk the health of both staff and residents and amounts to nursing home malpractice. The gross negligence of not protecting elderly residents in fragile health from contracting Covid potentially subjected them to severe illness and even wrongful death, requiring the involvement of a nursing home malpractice attorney.

• Irrespective of having Covid symptoms or even of testing positive, many nursing home workers were pressured to continue working, putting other staff and residents at risk.
  • Examples of sick staff forced to work included a Midwestern nursing home cook instructed to wear a wet rag rather than go home due to a 101 degree fever, and a Virginia employee told to take Tylenol and return to work with a fever.
  • Management at many facilities threatened termination or other punishment for employees who called in sick.
  • Many facilities did not require employees who tested positive to quarantine as per the then-existing CDC guidance; many others refused to give paid sick days to employees who did quarantine.

Forcing employees to work while positive with Covid endangers the health of nursing home residents and amounts to nursing home malpractice. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say that, as of early September, nearly 160,000 nursing-home residents have died of Covid-19. Residents exposed to Covid in this way may wrongfully die from the illness, necessitating the involvement of a wrongful death attorney.

• The obscure corporate structures employed by for-profit nursing homes may have enabled them to avoid legal and regulatory accountability and to obscure profits.
  • Ultimate parent ownership of nursing home facilities are obscured by the presence of one or more operating companies. For example, one Genesis Healthcare, Inc., facility had two corporate entities as owners, but eleven intermediate entities separating the facility from the parent companies. According to the Select Subcommittee, four other companies utilize similar corporate structures to Genesis.
  • Such convoluted structuring shields parent companies from regulatory penalties that tend to be presented at the facility level, and also protects parent companies from the scrutiny of the public. This structuring also can obscure the true financial state of nursing home facilities.

According to the report, for-profit facilities provide a lower quality of care and their residents suffer poorer health outcomes. For-profit homes—in particular, private equity-owned nursing homes—are more likely to warrant investigation for nursing home malpractice or necessitate the involvement of a wrongful death attorney.

Holding Nursing Homes Responsible for Insufficient Care

As a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, Brian P. Murphy is committed to fighting for the health and safety of Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing home residents. While living as a resident of a Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home, your loved one should be confident that his or her needs are met, as protected under federal law.  Brian Murphy’s extensive experience as a wrongful death attorney fighting negligent nursing homes positions him to successfully resolve nursing home malpractice cases. Should you find yourself needing to contact a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, call Brian Murphy today to discuss your legal options.

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Families Sue Nursing Home due to Negligence in Death from COVID: The lawsuit alleges nursing home neglect led to the rampant infection of the coronavirus that caused their loved ones’ wrongful death.

A new lawsuit brought by 16 families of loved ones who died during a 2020 surge of COVID-19 at a New Jersey nursing home brings accusations of gross negligence, wrongful death, and medical malpractice, says an article in the New Jersey Herald. According to the article, the suit filed in Sussex County Superior Court in early April claims that the Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center and Limecrest Subacute and Rehabilitation Center (previously known as Andover Subacute & Rehabilitation I & II) could have prevented residents’ deaths by implementing nursing home infection protocols. The complaint also claims that medical services performed “negligently and carelessly” contributed to the wrongful deaths of the facility’s COVID patients.

The sister homes first came under scrutiny in early spring of 2020, when the bodies of 17 victims of COVID-19 were found crammed into a morgue meant for no more than four bodies. By April of that year, more than 90 residents had died at these facilities.

According to the article, the suit outlines the following examples of nursing home negligence that allowed for extensive nursing home COVID infections in the spring of 2020, as well as illustrations of medical malpractice that contributed to residents’ wrongful death:

• Failure to issue the proper PPE to employees, or to require masks for visitors, housekeepers, recreation therapists, or nursing assistants
• Permitting employees and visitors to enter the facility without first taking their temperature
• Failure of doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants, and nurse practitioners to sufficiently deliver ordinary care or exercise a degree of skill while caring for sick patients
• Failure of medical providers to make timely diagnoses of, or to properly treat, residents with COVID
• Failure of medical providers to provide explanations to residents infected with COVID of the risks posed to them or the options available to them

Woodland meanwhile faces a host of challenges related to quality-of-care non-compliance. In February federal officials placed the home in an “immediate jeopardy” situation when facility workers were found to have committed acts consistent with nursing home abuse and neglect that jeopardized residents’ lives. The home was already in danger of losing federal funding due to poor quality of care; actions made by Woodland to improve matters preserved both federal funding and the facility’s license for now, although the termination of a provider agreement by authorities may proceed if more actions aren’t taken.

Many families sue this nursing home due to negligence in death from COVID; beyond the 16 families named in the suit, 50 additional families seek to join as class members if the complaint is certified by a judge as class action, the article says. Meanwhile, two other lawsuits against Woodland remain active in Sussex County Superior Court.

Seeking to Secure Your Loved One’s Safety

Your loved one’s Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home is required to meet every criterion in matters of hygiene as well as all other qualifications for safety. If you’re concerned about the quality of a Philadelphia/PA or NJ facility or you suspect neglect or abuse 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.

The post More Families Sue Andover Nursing Home, Claiming Gross Negligence in Relatives’ Death from COVID appeared first on The Law Firm of Brian P. Murphy, PC.

State Pandemic Lawsuits Proceed against NJ Nursing Homes:

Rejecting the operator’s claim that pandemic lawsuits should be heard in federal court, a federal appeals court ruled that the negligence claims brought against two New Jersey nursing homes should proceed in state courts, according to a recent Reuters article.

The nursing homes in question, operating during the height of the coronavirus pandemic as Andover Subacute & Rehabilitation I & II (recently renamed the “Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center”), came into the public eye when the bodies of 17 victims of COVID-19 were found crammed into a morgue meant for no more than four bodies. Over 90 residents died by April of 2020 at these facilities. The cases filed against these homes were brought by the families of four of these residents, who allege that negligence by the facilities allowed for the spread of the coronavirus.

Filed in state court in April of 2020, these cases were hindered from proceeding by the question of the appropriate court to hear them. The nursing home operator claimed that, due to the far-reaching aspects of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, the emergency federal law that guards those battling the pandemic from lawsuits, the cases against the homes belonged in federal court. A lower federal court disagreed, leading the nursing home to appeal. On October 20, the state pandemic lawsuits proceed against NJ nursing homes; the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld the ruling of the lower court, maintaining that the claims best belong in state court.

According to the article, other nursing homes have also cited the PREP Act when faced with wrongful death claims related to the pandemic. Enacted in 2005, the PREP Act was intended to shield from lawsuits critical players in an a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic—such as manufacturers of PPE, drug distributors, vaccine developers, and more. Operating on the front line of the pandemic—over 100,000 people died in nursing homes from COVID-19—nursing homes argued that the PREP Act ought to protect them, too. The 3rd Circuit Court has ruled that it is up to state courts to determine whether this law shields nursing homes from pandemic-related lawsuits; however, federal appeals by other nursing homes facing COVID lawsuits are still pending.

In the meantime, the 3rd Circuit’s ruling may advance other cases against nursing homes that claim such instances of COVID nursing home neglect as:

• Placing residents with symptoms of COVID-19 in rooms with non-symptomatic residents
• Undocumented COVID symptoms in residents
• Poor pandemic hygiene and disinfection practices
• Insufficient PPE protection for staff members

Securing Nursing Home Safety for Your Loved One

Your loved one’s Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home is required to meet every criterion in matters of hygiene as well as all other qualifications for safety. If you’re concerned about the quality of a Philadelphia/PA or NJ facility or you suspect neglect or abuse 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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