A January 11, 2019, article in The Cut, by authors, Kimberly Truong and Claire Lampen, was entitled, “Woman in Vegetative State Gives Birth, Prompting Sexual-Assault Investigation”. The article delineates that, “On December 29 (2018), a woman who had been in a vegetative state for over two decades gave birth in an Arizona nursing facility, prompting authorities to investigate what looks like a case of sexual assault.” According to Truong and Lampen, following the “resignation,” just a few days later, of the “CEO of the corporation that runs the nursing home, they learned that, though “it was previously reported that the woman had been a patient at Hacienda HealthCare for about 14 years, new records obtained by People found that she had been at the facility since she was between the ages of 2 and 3. The records also indicated that she has quadriplegia and a seizure disorder, along with recurrent pneumonia.”

Article and image copyright © 2019, New York Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Outraged family members spoke to Fox10, and, later, as described in the article, an anonymous source for another news outlet, KKPHO-TV, told the reporters that they, “know that at some point last spring or summer, someone sexually assaulted a woman who was in a persistent vegetative state, and she became pregnant.” Truong and Lampen continued: “Authorities have reportedly remained tight-lipped about the case, but given the circumstances, sexual abuse would seem to be the most logical conclusion.”

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE IN THE CUT (VIA YAHOO NEWS) BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK

Contact Dalli & Marino LLP

Dalli & Marino, LLP has been providing top-tier representation, and we have recovered millions of dollars, for those who have experienced mistreatment and neglect in nursing, elder care and other care facilities, in New York City, Suffolk and Nassau Counties, (Long Island), Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Westchester County, since 1995.

Please contact our team to discuss your case, or with any questions, at 1-888-465-8790 [Toll-Free], or by completing the CASE EVALUATION Form on our Contact Page.

A shocking story appeared on and in several New York news outlets in 2017, one sourced here from the News4NY (NBC) website, entitled, “Nurse Attacks 83-Year-Old Paraplegic War Veteran After He Outs Her for Being Late to Work: Cops”. The story described how, “A licensed practical nurse allegedly brutally attacked an 83-year-old paraplegic Korean War veteran as he lay helpless in a stretcher once she learned he had notified her employer that she showed up late for work.”

Areatha Pickens

According to police quoted in the 2017 report, the situation occurred when the nurse, Areatha Pickens, allegedly, “became outraged after the elderly man told her employer she was late and punched him repeatedly, fracturing an orbital bone. The man, who became paraplegic in a 1975 car accident, was treated at a hospital.”

READ THE COMPLETE STORY ON THE NEWS4NY WEBSITE

Contact Dalli & Marino LLP

Dalli & Marino, LLP has been providing top-tier representation, and we have recovered millions of dollars, for those who have experienced elder abuse, or issues of neglect or mistreatment by providers, in New York City, Suffolk and Nassau Counties, (Long Island), Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Westchester County, since 1995.

Please contact our team to discuss your case, or with any questions, at 1-888-465-8790 [Toll-Free], or by completing the CASE EVALUATION Form on our Contact Page.

Following is a joint statement issued by Long Term Care Community Coalition and the Center for Medicare Advocacy on current financial troubles and turmoil in the nursing home industry.   The statement is also available at  https://nursinghome411.org/ltccc-comments/.

Joint Statement on Turmoil in the Nursing Home Industry

January 2019—The nursing home industry is facing tremendous turmoil because some operators are undertaking risky financial deals in an attempt to squeeze out larger profits from their nursing homes, even when these deals could potentially harm residents. The recent collapse of several nursing home chains around the country also raises serious concerns about the quality of states’ licensure processes and the industry’s ability to meet the care needs of a vulnerable population.

In a recently published article, The Washington Post examined the impact that a private-equity firm had on one nursing home chain. After the Carlyle Group bought HCR ManorCare, the number of health deficiencies at the chain “each year rose 26 percent between 2013 and 2017.” During this period, the Carlyle Group sold ManorCare’s real estate empire for about $6.1 billion dollars, in an arrangement which then required to the chain to pay rent to the new owners. Unable to pay the escalating rent, the chain was forced into bankruptcy in 2018.

ManorCare’s financial troubles are not isolated. Other nursing home chains have collapsed as a result of risky financial decisions and poor management. Skyline Healthcare’s nursing homes in several states were taken over through receiverships and rapid-fire sales after poor management placed residents in danger. The Kansas City Star noted that “[a]nalysts and industry insiders say state regulators should have known Skyline was biting off more than it could chew . . . the company was struggling to pay its bills in other states even before it moved into Kansas . . . .” Skyline acquired many of its facilities from Golden Living, another nursing home chain that was sued by the Pennsylvania Attorney General in 2015. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the lawsuit stated that “Golden Living was guilty of deceptive advertising in Pennsylvania in that it promised decent care but did not deliver it.”

Such examples of risky financial arrangements and poor management are in addition to cases of related-party transactions which can siphon money away from resident care. The New York Times explained that “owners of nursing homes outsource a wide variety of goods and services to companies in which they have a financial interest or that they control.” The article added that nearly three-quarters of nursing homes in the U.S. employ such practices and that these nursing homes tend to “have fewer nurses and aides per patient, they have higher rates of patient injuries and unsafe practices, and they are the subject of complaints almost twice as often as independent homes.”

Nursing home residents need to be protected from bad actors who place their lives in danger. States must develop, implement, and enforce better policies and procedures for reviewing operating licenses to make sure existing operators with a history of providing poor care cannot expand their operations and that new operators are thoroughly vetted. Additionally, medical loss ratios should be implemented across the industry to limit profits and administrative costs. Without proper oversight and accountability, resident care will continue to take a backseat to “profits.”

For additional information and resources, please visit

www.nursinghome411.org and www.medicareadvocacy.org.

 

Long Term Care Community Coalition
www.nursinghome411.org
One Penn Plaza, Suite 6252
New York, NY 10119
United States

We monitor regional and national news for stories of nursing home and elder abuse. These stories supplement the case studies, scenarios and vignettes that we have produced here, based upon actual cases and situations encountered since 1995 when we began our practice.
Dalli & Marino LLP