Bessie Seday, an 84 year old, who was a resident of Creekside would sit in her dirty soiled bed for hours without anyone helping her or cleaning her. As a result she developed a bed sore which would not heal. Apparently Bessie was put in the whirpool which should have helped her bedsores but it did not help because the whirlpool was used to wash dirty bedpans so basically Bessie Seday was being placed in this pool with the dirt and feces that went into it from the dirty bedpans. Bessie’s left buttocks and part of her pelvis was removed to fix the problem.
Rhoda Johnson was another resident of Creekside who had a bedsore on her hip that was so deep that you could actually see her hip socket and bone inside the wound. Her daughter found her with dried feces on her.
Both Bessie and Rhoda hired lawyers and sued Creekside. Bessie got a $862,500 settlement, while Rhoda received a $775,000 settlement. Also, it was at Creekside that attorney Von Packard started looking at death certificates of people who died in nursing homes in California. He claims that more than 7% of those deaths were caused by bedsores that went untreated, malnutrition, or other problems that could have been prevented or treated. Four other residents also sued Creekside and received more than $2 million in settlements.
This story was reported in 1997 but it doesn’t appear that too much has changed since then. In a New York Times article in May, 2008, it was reported that nursing home inspectors do not report serious problems at nursing homes. For instance the report found that many times bedsores, malnutrition, overuse of certain prescribed medicines and abuse still do not get reported by the inspectors or was not treated seriously. They even found that some patients had maggots in their wounds.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!
I think more lawyers should prosecute these nursing homes which do not give adequate care and when the owners of these nursing homes pay out enough money to settle lawsuits, then they may be inspired to make some changes. Economic solutions are always the most effective—hit them where it counts—their pocket book.
Graff, James, Mark Thomson and S.C. Gwynne. “Nursing Homes: Fatal Neglect.” Time Magazine. October 27, 1997. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987233,00.html
Pear, Robert. “Serious Deficiencies in Nursing Homes Are Often Missed, Report Says.” The New York Times. May 15, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/washington/15health.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
