400 Patients Evacuated From Chicago Nursing Home After Fire
A fire recently forced the evacuation of a large Chicago nursing home. According to news reports, the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago was called out to provide assistance to patients at Lydia Health Care Center in suburban Robbins in the early morning hours following the fire. Presently, an investigation is underway to determine the source of this nursing home fire. Lydia Health Care Center is a certificated long-term care facility that primarily cares for mentally ill patients....
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Sexual Abuse Of Patient In Chicagoland Nursing Home
Even with strict federal and state laws protecting nursing home patients, somehow people completely unfit for the job manage to find their way into positions where they are caring for an incredibly vulnerable group of people. Recently, the Chicago Tribune reported on a horribly shameful incident involving the sexual assault of a nursing home patient by a supervisor at the facility. Twenty-two-year-old, Angelo J. Bird of Woodstock, a CNA and midnight shift supervisor has been charged with sexually assaulting a disabled elderly woman at Crystal Pines Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Crystal Lake, IL. The 93-year-old sexual assault...
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Violations, Citations & Fines; Not Enough To Close Down Columbus Manor Nursing Home
Even with a long history of serious patient safety violations, Columbus Manor Residential Care Home on Chicago's West-side, continues to keep its doors open. Primarily a Medicaid (state) funded facility, Columbus Manor's owners have fought tooth and nail to keep the facility in operation in spite of threats of funding termination for non-compliance with safety measures. The communities, Austin Talks website, recently discussed how even with a series of uncorrected violations accumulated during inspections from The Illinois Department of Health over the summer months, Columbus Manor manages to remain open--- long after it would appear to be permitted to do so...
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Nursing Home Spotlight: Glenwood Healthcare & Rehab; Glenwood, Illinois
Glenwood Healthcare & Rehab is a large 184-bed facility located just south of Chicago, with an “A” wing and a “B” wing. According to the government’s Medicare Web site, Glenwood received an overall rating of one out of five stars. While this alone raises several red flags, recent surveys from the Illinois Health Department confirm that Glenwood can indeed be a dangerous place for residents.What stands out most from the four surveys (completed between August and October of last year) are two appalling incidents of what can only be called extreme negligence. The first incident, which occurred on July 7,...
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Nursing Home Spotlight: Waterfront Terrace Nursing Home; Chicago, IL
Despite claims on its Web site that its “philosophy is one of compassion,” the Waterfront Terrace Nursing Home in Chicago appeared quite differently to recent health department surveyors. Disposable razors in residents’ rooms Exposed wiring in bathrooms A large hole in the vending room ceiling A bag of expired medications from 2007, stored alongside current medications In a survey conducted in mid-March, inspectors found several alarming deficiencies. One of the most serious was the home’s repeated failure to effectively screen residents for severe mental illness. At least three patients had severe schizo-affective disorders, the report said, which put all 98...
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Nursing Home Patient Dies After Clothes Ignite While Smoking
Authorities are now investigating the smoking-related death of a 62-year-old man at a Chicago nursing home. The man identified as, Lawrence Lewis, suffered first and second degree burns to more than 20% of his body after his clothes caught fire while lighting a cigarette in an outdoor smoking area. After struggling with another patient to extinguish the fire, a third person at the nursing home used a fire extinguisher to put out any remaining flames. The Chicago Fire Department transferred Mr. Lewis to nearby Saint Frances Hospital in Evanston. Due to the severity of his burns, Mr. Lewis was eventually...
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Chicago Nursing Home Patient Sexually Assaulted By CNA
Despite a steady stream of disturbing news headlines, sex crimes in nursing homes remain a rare-- but certainly troubling-- problem at facilities across the country. Most upsetting when these crimes are perpetrated upon disabled patients, they rarely get the attention that they deserve from both the facility as well as law enforcement as there is a sickening assumption that the act has no impact on the individual. Just days ago, another sexual assault was seemingly perpetrated by a CNA at a Chicagoland nursing home. The Chicago Tribune reported that Robert J. Phelan, Jr., a CNA at Lexington Health Care of...
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Fall No. Assault Yes. Death Of Chicago Nursing Home Resident Under Investigation
The investigation into the death of a resident at a Chicago nursing home took a surprising turn when the Cook County Medical Examiner's office revealed that a patient's closed head injuries were due to an assault as opposed to a fall as was initially reported. 86-year-old Mercedes Inverson had been living at Maryhaven Nursing and Rehabilitation in Glenview, IL where she somehow sustained a closed head injury last week and was taken to Northshore Health System Evanston Hospital. Shortly after she was pronounced dead at the facility, an autopsy concluded that the type of head injury she sustained was not...
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New Legislation To Protect Young & Vulnerable Awaits Governors Signature
While we usually think of older people in nursing homes, the reality is that there remains a sizable contingent of younger people who remain in nursing homes and other types of long-term care facilities. Many of these younger people suffer from disabilities such as birth defects and other genetic disorders that require intensive medical care. In some circumstances these younger patients have been admitted to these facilities simply because their families are unable to care for them at home. Sadly, in some circumstances, many of these younger patients are highly susceptible to harm from both other patients and the staff...
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Is The Push To Privatize A Chicagoland Nursing Home A Good Thing?
It's no secret that privately operated, "for-profit" nursing homes tend to provide inferior care and have higher rates of deficiencies that their "non-profit" peers, yet a Chicagoland community is set to possibilily turn over the operation of a long-time nursing home to a private company. Citing the financial burden of providing quality patient care within the standardized medicare reimbursement rates, Lake County has summoned a panel of experts to an advisory board to help determine if the county should shift operation of the long-standing Winchester House in Libertyville, IL to a private nursing home operator. Advisory board chairman, Ric Olson...
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