Elder abuse reform returning to Minnesota Legislature as advocacy groups search for consensus

DULUTH — The 2019 Minnesota Legislature will again take up reforms aimed at keeping vulnerable and elderly Minnesotans safe and holding accountable those who are charged with their care. Efforts to do so earlier this year failed.

Rep. Liz Olson, DFL-Duluth, who will be the majority whip in the DFL-controlled House when the Legislature convenes in a month, said she’s hopeful her chamber and the Republican-controlled Senate will come together to create meaningful change. So are her fellow lawmakers.

“We don’t have another year to put this issue on the backburner,” said Sen. Karin Housley, R-St. Mary’s Point. 

After a StarTribune investigation last fall that found very few reported allegations of elder abuse were being fully investigated, a consumer-led task force in January called for “far-reaching policy and agency practice changes to prevent and deter abuse.” 

Specifically, the group recommended:

• Strengthening and expanding rights of older and vulnerable adults and their families
• Enhancing criminal and civil enforcement
• Developing new licensure frameworks for assisted living and dementia care
• Improving licensing regulation, enforcement, investigations and reporting

A bill born of those recommendations did not get a hearing.

Housley, chairwoman of the Senate Aging and Long-Term Care Committee, shepherded a bill to allow electronic monitoring of residents, require residents and family members be notified of abuse investigations, increase oversight of the Office of Health Facility Complaints and expand the Home Care Bill of Rights, among other initiatives.

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the bill as the session crashed to a close in May.

Since then, stakeholders across six working groups have been working to find common ground.

“We’ll start over, and hear bills early on where there’s agreement and work out the details where there isn’t,” said Rep. Jen Schultz, DFL-Duluth, who will be chairwoman of the House subcommittee on long term care.

Requiring assisted living facilities to be licensed is one issue where there is industry support.

“I do think we absolutely need to have a licensing structure for assisted living facilities. Minnesota is way behind the rest of the country on that particular measure,” said state Sen. Tony Lourey, DFL-Kerrick.

Gov.-elect Tim Walz agreed there is a need for better oversight.

“In many cases, it’s an industry that has grown rapidly with an aging population, and we haven’t quite figured out how to keep up with that,” he said.

Housley said she’ll consider all proposals the House sends over.

“Some of the things I’m hearing go too far for me and my constituents,” she said. “But I’m always going to have that discussion, and absolutely we’ll sit down and work together.”

Little oversight

Seven days newspapers piled up. Seven days he was missing from meals.

It took seven days for someone to realize that Kristine Sundberg’s father had died in a senior living facility. In the months that followed, Sundberg found she had little recourse to hold the facility accountable.

“I went to start looking at who are the authorities? I was blown away you could have no oversight of a facility like that,” she said at a meeting of a senior group last month.

Sundberg is now the board president of Elder Voice Advocates, an advocacy group that was part of the coalition that called for “far-reaching” reforms.

Industry group LeadingAge Minnesota, which represents more than 1,100 senior care-focused organizations, is open to a number of changes.

“We believe the working groups have provided the foundation from which to build, particularly in the areas of assisted living licensure, dementia care standards and electronic monitoring,” LeadingAge Minnesota CEO Gayle Kvenvold said. 

That broader coalition should signal success early in the session, Kvenvold said.

“When we get to the details, that it is perhaps where it is most difficult to find that consensus, but I’m more than hopeful, in fact I’m optimistic, that we have broad enough agreements around some of the core principles,” she said.

Elder abuse resources

Call 911

Call the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center at 1-844-880-1574

Call the Ombudsman for Long-Term Care at 651-431-2555

Reach the Office of Health Facility Complaints at 651-201-4200 or health.ohfc-complaints@state.mn.us or visit http://bit.ly/mnOHFC

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Elder abuse reform returning to Minnesota Legislature as advocacy groups search for consensus

Retired Orange County Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux dies, but probate fight persists for her estate

Trailblazer was 'persecuted by the very judicial system she served so well,' said a nephew.

 

Superior Court Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux in 1988. (File Photo by Ana Venegas, Orange County Register/SCNG)

She was an accomplished opera singer, a film casting agent, an office secretary for Coca-Cola and, finally, Orange County’s first female Superior Court judge.

Appointed to the municipal bench in 1974 and then later to the superior court bench, Betty Lou Lamoreaux fought so fervently for children’s rights that the county’s seven-story family court in Orange is named after her: the Lamoreaux Justice Center.

Feisty to the core, Lamoreaux once commented to a reporter in a published report that she sometimes wanted to put parents in jail instead of their children, who had been scarred by broken homes and a lack of family morals.

Lamoreaux died Nov. 30 after a years-long struggle with Alzheimer’s. She was 94.

Born April 22, 1924, in Twin Falls, Idaho, Lamoreaux was raised by her aunt and uncle in North Ogden, Utah, upon her mother’s death. She was known to family and friends as “Lou.”

Lamoreaux obtained her bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA and then her law degree from San Francisco Law School. She was admitted to the California Bar in 1957.

Probate tug-of-war persists

In the last years of her life, Lamoreaux was caught in a tug-of-war between relatives and probate court attorneys over how best to take care of her.

Despite her death, the probate court battle is far from over. Feuding family members and nearly 10 attorneys and conservators are angling for a piece of what’s left of her estate, a Newport Beach house valued at an estimated $1.5 million.

The probate professionals likely will be submitting bills worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for a judge to consider. Then there is the battle between two factions of Lamoreaux’s family for whatever is left.

Nephew Duff McGrath, Lamoreaux’s trustee, says he is trying to preserve her legacy and fulfill her wishes. And he regrets taking the case to probate court in an attempt to shield Lamoreaux and her estate from an in-law described in court documents as a “con man.”

What McGrath found was that by going to court, he opened the door for attorneys to be hired as well as conservators and beneficiaries and forensic accountants, each commanding high salaries. At one point, the court-appointed experts drove up Lamoreaux’s cost of care to $40,000 a month.

‘Persecuted’ by judicial system

“In the last remaining years of her brilliant life, ironically, she was persecuted by the very judicial system she served so well. Complacent judges and greedy, court-appointed officers began to drain her life savings on frivolous court filings during the time she needed protection,” McGrath said.

It is problem replayed throughout the nation. Probate judges take the power from family members and give it to strangers with big salaries, isolating the client and creating dispute. The longer the dispute, the longer the fees accrue for court hearings, motions and other legal proceedings. By keeping the case open, the experts keep the money flowing.

Not all probate cases end badly and expensively. But many do, to the point that reformers describe the attorney-driven system as: “isolate, medicate, steal the estate.”

“It’s happening again and again. It’s like a plague on our senior citizens,” Berkeley Vice Mayor Ben Bartlett, who is among those calling for state reform, said in a previous interview.

“We need to turn the operation upside down. What you see is an incentive to work up attorney fees,” Bartlett said. “There is no incentive to preserve the liberty of the person. We need greater oversight with more opportunity to challenge.”

Much of the McGraths’ criticism is aimed at Laguna Hills conservator Sally Cicerone — one of the more active conservators in Orange County. State records show she managed $26.7 million in assets in 2017.

After her first year with Lamoreaux, she billed the estate $42,210, according to records.

Among the family’s complaints: Cicerone waited four months to get a replacement for Lamoreaux’s broken wheelchair. And even then, the new chair didn’t fit and quickly broke. Cicerone billed $700 for her time. Cicerone declined comment Friday when reached by phone.

McGrath is staging a “reverent walk” for probate awareness at 10 a.m. Jan. 3 from the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange to the Superior Court in Santa Ana. For more information and to RSVP, contact jdnduffy@aol.com. On Jan. 4, McGrath said he will screen a full-length documentary free of charge on the probate scandal called “The Guardians” at the 800-seat Performing Arts Center in Laguna Woods.

Full Article & Source: 
Retired Orange County Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux dies, but probate fight persists for her estate

Grand jury to hear testimony in elderly exploitation case

Kevin Saffold

Following a four-hour preliminary hearing, financial exploitation of the elderly charges against a Dothan man have been bound over to a Houston County grand jury.

Kevin Saffold is charged with three counts of financial exploitation after a 79-year-old woman told police Saffold told her to purchase two vehicles for him and that he would help increase her credit score so she could get a home mortgage.

Other charges against Saffold -- one count of second-degree theft of property and one count of second-degree possession of forged instruments – have been continued.

Dothan Police Investigator Daniel Grantham told the court the victim had contacted the police, stating she had received calls from a financial institution where two vehicles were financed in her name.

The state believes the victim did not understand fully what she was doing at the time she purchased the vehicles. Prosecutor Mark Johnson also stated with the victim being on Social Security, she did not have the means to make the payments.

Dothan Police first began an investigation into Saffold after an elderly exploitation complaint came in back in June. The victim claimed Saffold represented himself to be a paralegal and suggested she purchase two costly vehicles in order to build her credit and be able to qualify for a home purchase.

According to police, Saffold told the woman he would make the payments on the vehicles, a 2016 Dodge Ram Truck with a purchase price of $43,888.25 and a 2015 BMW X1 in the amount of $30,846.24. The purchases were made within two days of each other.

Police said no payments were made on the vehicles.

Representing himself, Saffold cross-examined the Grantham, showing the witness receipts from vehicle payments.

Saffold asked Grantham did he contact any of the financial institutions inquiring if the accounts were up-to-date, Grantham stated he had not. Saffold then presented a registration receipt for the Houston County Tag Office, authorizing Saffold to tag the vehicle in the victim’s name.

During the course of the investigation, police said they received a complaint that Saffold was in possession of a voided vehicle title. Police said Saffold pawned the title to a Lincoln car in the amount of $2,175 in July of this year, but it had been previously pawned a week earlier at a different title loan business. Police said no payments were made to the title loan businesses.

Court records show Title Cash sued Saffold in October, seeking possession of a 2007 Lincoln MKX-V6, or $4,500 as cash value of the property. This case is still proceeding.

During the investigation it was also determined Saffold allegedly represented himself as a family member of the 79-year-old victim at a local dental office, where he allegedly obtained dental work after having the victim sign the paperwork.

The alleged incident occurred between March 30 and June 13.

During Friday’s preliminary hearing Saffold presented paperwork stating payments were also being made on the dental work.

While the state argued Saffold took advantage of the victim, the defense argued the defendant was making payments and by making payments he helped the victim’s credit score increase. However, the victim surrendered the BMW to car lot. The Dodge pickup truck has not been located at the time. The victim told police she wishes to surrender the truck as well.

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Grand jury to hear testimony in elderly exploitation case

Kansas family warns others that Medicaid can take your house

“People need to know they are going to do this. People need to know they can take away your homes if they help your parents,” Janie Lucas warns.
(KCTV5 News)

ELMWOOD, KS (KCTV) -- A Kansas family is warning others that Medicaid can take your house.

It’s a lesson learned the hard way after a grandmother battled cancer and spent her final years in a nursing home.

“People need to know they are going to do this. People need to know they can take away your homes if they help your parents,” Janie Lucas warns.

Treva Bollman worked for years and paid taxes before cancer hit hard. There were surgeries and Bollman needed nursing care.

“It was a long hard battle,” Lucas said.

Bollman had Medicare and then Medicaid as a secondary insurance.

The family says the question if Bollman understood the strings attached.

The state recently put what’s called a “post death Medicaid Lien” on the property.

“We get this letter after she gets sick. Saying they want it now. it’s no longer mine and that’s not right,” Walter Bollman said.

“For the state to say we helped you now we want our money back. It’s almost half a million dollars,” Lucas said.

The family says the property is sentimental but question the value to others.

“It’s Elwood, Kansas. So, it’s worth maybe $50,000 to $60,000,” Lucas said.

“We are living on a sandbar so you have sinkholes coming up everywhere,” Walter Bollman said.

The family is sharing what happened to them to warn possibly help others.

“When someone goes on Medicaid, they are notified that at some point estate recovery is going to be a part of this process. Unfortunately, they are inundated with so much paperwork it probably doesn’t even get noticed,” elder car attorney Tim Winkler said.

Winkler points out every day 9,000 baby boomers turn 65, but many families are unprepared.

“If you get good advice there are steps you can take to lessen it or avoid it,” Winkler said.

For more information:

https://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-2016/plan-ahead-for-longterm-care.html

https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/estate-recovery/index.html

https://www.agingwisely.com/eldercare-family-checklist/

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Kansas family warns others that Medicaid can take your house

Nursing home employee accused of raping resident with dementia

Click to Watch Video

HANOVER, IN (WAVE) – A Madison, Ind., man is behind bars, accused of raping a dementia patient.

David Garcia is charged with one count of rape, a level-three felony. Hanover police said it happened Saturday at the Hanover Nursing Center. Garcia was arrested Wednesday after a co-worker reported him having sex with a 74-year-old female dementia patient.

“He had been a past employee there and had returned recently to it as a CNA or certified nursing assistant,” said Chief Joshua Taylor, of the Hanover Police Department. “That’s the position he was working in the capacity of this evening.”

According to police records, a co-worker saw a man with his pants down and a woman on the bed, believed to be a patient, and reported it to co-workers immediately to be investigated.

When questioned, the victim told investigators she’d had sex with a man and pointed toward her groin.

“As of right now, with the information we have, we felt comfortable filing that rape charge, but will continue to review this going forward, if any additional charges will pop up during the investigation,” Jefferson County (Ind.) Prosecutor David Sutter said.

Garcia admitted he was in that room but denied the alleged assault, trying to explain to police why his bodily fluids may have been in the room.

Police said Garcia had prior arrests but nothing like this. Taylor said it’s so important to be careful when hiring people in charge of caring for vulnerable populations, like dementia patients.

“You do everything you can to ensure you have the right person for the position there,” Taylor said. “From the get go, a lot of times with investigations we have, there’s no indicators, nothing in the history, nothing in past to give the red flag.”

If convicted, Garcia could face up to 16 years in prison.

Sutter said his office is weighing the charges in the case seriously because of the kind of crime and the position of trust Garcia was in during the alleged rape.

“As a community, you always want to try to take care of your most vulnerable,” Sutter said. “We certainly feel like whether it’s infants or folks that are for whatever reason in nursing centers, those are people that we need to take care of and we obviously take that very seriously. Community safety is the utmost importance for my office and the Hanover Police Department.”

Hanover police said the investigation is ongoing, and they’re speaking with others at the nursing center to ensure there are no other victims but right now, they believe this was an isolated incident.

Garcia is expected to be in court Friday for an initial hearing.

The administrator at the Hanover Nursing Center declined to comment about the incident or about Garcia’s arrest, saying she couldn’t discuss the matter while it’s under investigation.

Full Article & Source:
Nursing home employee accused of raping resident with dementia

Brunswick lawyer disbarred over misuse of funds totaling $287K

Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar announced Wednesday that Brunswick lawyer James Whittemore will not be allowed to practice law for 10 years, citing serious professional and ethical violations that include allegations he has misused approximately $287,000 of client funds.

The Times Record reported by Whittemore, 69, also faces criminal charges in Cumberland County. He was indicted on two counts of theft by misapplication of property and one count of theft by unauthorized taking, the Brunswick newspaper reported, adding that Whittemore pleaded not guilty to those charges.

"In each instance, Mr. Whittemore's conduct demonstrated violations of duties owed directly to his clients," Superior Court Justice Nancy D. Mills wrote in her Nov. 30 decision. "In addition, Mr. Whittemore violated duties that he owed to the court, to the public, and to his profession. … As noted above, in each of the five counts, there was serious and intentional misconduct that exacted both financial and emotional injury to vulnerable clients."

According to court documents, Whittemore:

• Mishandled and is suspected of converting "approximately $151,981.06 derived from the assets" of a trust in "a matter then pending in the Cumberland County Probate Court."
• Improperly received and converted $100,000 in a settlement of two wrongful death claims, which had been made directly payable to his client trust account instead of the client and her son.
• Misappropriated $15,000 sent by a donor to the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust to be held in escrow for an easement purchase.
• Accepted $18,790 from a client he was representing in a "right-of-way easement issue … without performing the requisite legal work."
• Accepted a $1,500 retainer from a client and "performed minimal legal services for [the client] and then converted the remaining advanced fee for his own use."

Court documents indicate the complainants have filed or will be filing for reimbursement through the Lawyer's Fund for Client Protection.

The Times Record reported that Whittemore's lawyer declined comment on the case on Wednesday.

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Brunswick lawyer disbarred over misuse of funds totaling $287K

Fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicare hospice program is ‘repellent’

Like many Americans, I have a story about hospice care for a loved one. When my father was dying from complications of dementia and diabetes, hospice caregivers sat with him, provided pain relief, and helped him be comfortable. They also gave my mother peace of mind that her beloved husband was receiving kind attention in his final weeks. To this day, she refers to those hospice workers as angels.

Sadly, not every family’s story is a positive one.

Some patients experience days of pain or severe anxiety because their hospices fail to provide pain management and other needed services. Some are signed up for hospice without their knowledge, including some individuals who are not terminally ill.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, for which I work, recently published a report examining hospice practices over a decade. It showed that hospices do not always provide the services that patients need and sometimes provide poor-quality care. We also found that patients and their families often do not receive crucial information to make informed decisions about hospice care.

We uncovered multiple abuses in our investigations:

Hospice recruiters inappropriately promised Medicare beneficiaries free housecleaning and other services that are not provided through hospice without telling them they would be signed up for the hospice benefit. That means they unknowingly gave up treatments that could cure, or at least manage, their conditions and instead received only palliative care.

In a North Texas case, nurses allegedly gave high doses of drugs such as morphine, regardless of whether patients needed it, to justify receiving the higher hospice payments. Some of these excessive dosages resulted in significant injury or death.

Or take the case of Larry Johnson’s 87-year-old mother, who had dementia. Two days before she died, he learned that she had been enrolled in hospice more than a year earlier, a decision that an individual with dementia shouldn’t make without assistance. “My mother needed basic care, but not hospice ― and especially not for a year and then some!” Johnson said in an interview with our staff.

Our investigation in her case yielded results: The owner of that hospice company received a 6-1/2-year federal prison sentence for running an elaborate, $20 million hospice scheme that signed up patients who were not dying. The hospice is permanently closed.

The idea that hospice care could abuse and neglect patients when they are at their most vulnerable, or exploit them for unjust enrichment, is repellent.

Because taxpayers bankroll poor care and fraud through the Medicare hospice benefit, policymakers need to take immediate action to implement safeguards against fraud, waste, and abuse of this important benefit.

Growth in the use of hospice makes it even more important to take action now. The latest Medicare data show that hospice use has grown over the past decade: In 2006, Medicare paid $9.2 billion for fewer than 1 million beneficiaries in hospice care. Ten years later, it paid $16.7 billion for more than 1.4 million beneficiaries.

Quality hospice care can provide significant comfort and support to terminally ill patients and their families and caregivers. But we must take steps to prevent both the very human toll and the economic toll that hospice fraud takes.

The Inspector General’s office made recommendations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, in seven key areas. Although CMS did not agree with a number of them, we believe they are essential for weeding out poorly performing and unscrupulous hospice providers:

• Congress should give CMS the authority to hold poor performing hospices accountable and take swift action when warranted.
• CMS should take steps to tie payments to patient care needs and quality of care, rather than the current approach of paying a flat rate regardless of how many services a hospice provides, which can create incentives to minimize services and seek patients with uncomplicated needs.
• CMS should provide more information to the public, especially Medicare beneficiaries, about hospice performance so consumers can effectively compare hospice providers. CMS now provides such information for nursing homes on its Nursing Home Compare website; a similar offering for hospice on Hospice Compare would help consumers make informed choices.

Patients and their family members can help guard against fraud by carefully reviewing the summary notices they receive from Medicare detailing the services for which Medicare has been billed on their behalf and report those that were not authorized or received.

Medicare beneficiaries who elect hospice care should receive high-quality services, and hospices should act with integrity when billing government health programs. Most already do that, and assist dying patients with dignity and compassion.

We strongly urge CMS and Congress to implement our longstanding recommendations to protect patients and their families from hospice providers that are exploiting this vital service.

Joanne M. Chiedi is the principal deputy inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.

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Fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicare hospice program is ‘repellent’

An 81-year-old, his gruesome wound, and no explanation from caregivers: The story of Phillip Kennedy’s three days in a Toronto nursing home

It’s been more than a year since 81-year-old Toronto nursing home resident Phillip Kennedy suffered a leg wound so deep and wide it looked as if he had been sliced open by an axe.

His daughter, Kathleen Kennedy, said the home has never told her family how Phillip was injured, even though it happened in the middle of the day, in a licensed Ontario long-term care facility busy with nurses and personal support workers.

Kathleen Kennedy, with her brother Greg with their mother, Teresa. Phillip 

Kennedy went into a Toronto nursing home on Oct. 25 2017 for a short rehab

stay and three days later, suffered a massive gash that was so deep it looked

like someone had struck him with an axe.  (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

When Phillip was injured — three days after moving in — nobody from Hawthorne Place Care Centre could, or would, say how it happened. A provincial ministry of health inspector spent six days investigating but found no explanation for the cause of the injury. Phillip died in hospital three weeks later. Kathleen said his death report cited end-stage heart disease and kidney failure.

“If they had just said to me, ‘you know what, we dropped him,’ or even, ‘you know what, he was hit with an axe, we are sorry and this is what we’ve done to make sure it doesn’t happen to someone else,’ I would have accepted it. But there was none of that. Nothing,” Kathleen said.

“It is very unsettling.”

After Phillip was injured, on Oct. 28, 2017, the inspector interviewed at least eight employees, including the home’s administrator, physiotherapist and personal support workers. While the inspector’s final report, provided to the Star by Phillip’s family, didn’t find conclusive answers, it detailed four violations, including the “abuse and neglect” that led to the firing of five workers, along with unsafe practices while moving him from sitting to standing and from chair to bed.

Last week, a spokesperson for Hawthorne Place Care Centre told the Star that its internal probe, including the work of an outside investigator, found that Phillip’s injury was likely the result of a staff error.

“All indications are that the injury was unintentional — the result of an accident which occurred while the resident was being cared for by our staff,” the emailed statement said. “This is a highly regrettable incident, and we apologize without reservation to the resident's family.”

Kathleen said this is the first she has heard of the home’s findings.

Hawthorne Place is owned by Rykka Care Centres. Its managing partner, Responsive Management Inc., said the nursing home could not go into any additional detail because of “pending legal action” by the family. Last spring, Kathleen, a registered nurse, hired a Toronto law firm to look into her father’s case.

The family’s troubles began more than a year ago, after Phillip was discharged from a Richmond Hill hospital where he had spent two months after repeated falls, along with heart problems.

On Oct. 25, 2017, Phillip moved into a shared room on the first floor of Hawthorne Place, a long-term care home built in the early 1970s near Jane St. and Finch Ave.

His time there was expected to be short, just to get him steady on his feet again, so he arrived with little more than his clothes and rosary beads. If he struggled with his balance, Phillip’s mind was sharp and he loved to read, always with a newspaper or the BBC History magazine by his side.

Three days later, a personal support worker found Phillip lying in bed, his sheets stained with blood, the worker told the inspector. A deep slash in his leg cut to the bone. Staff huddled outside his room, entering and leaving, as he lay in bed, his eyes closed, murmuring in response to a nurse’s question: “Are you okay?” The nurse could not hear what he said.

That afternoon, Greg Kennedy, Phillip’s son, was driving with his mom to visit his dad when nursing home staff called to tell him of the injury.

“When I got there, he was in bed and his leg was bandaged,” said Greg, a supervisor at Molson Coors, currently on disability leave. “There were five workers standing outside his room and nobody could say what happened. He was incoherent. He looked awful. He was grey, a kind of death look.

“I was in tears when I left there. I thought he was going to die right then and there.”

Greg said the paramedics who rushed Phillip to Humber River Hospital told his family to file a complaint with the ministry about the severity of the injury and staff’s inability to describe how it happened. Kathleen contacted the ministry, and a few days later the inspector arrived to investigate.

The home’s administrator told the inspector that “discrepancies were found emerging from staff interviews.”

Staff didn’t immediately report the injury to the ministry or police, as is required when abuse is a possible cause. After the home’s administrator learned of Phillip’s condition two days later, the ministry and police were contacted, the report said. Kathleen and the administrator separately reported the injury to Toronto Police, who told the Star officers interviewed “at least two staff members” but could not confirm how Phillip was injured. Police closed the case in January.

Hawthorne Place fired the two personal support workers and three nurses who were involved in Phillip’s care that day, the report said. The nurses were reported to the College of Nurses of Ontario, the oversight body for nurses. A college spokesperson confirmed the nurses are being investigated.

Photographs taken by Greg show the gash was on the outer part of Phillip’s right leg, just below the knee. It was a deep, gaping wound.

The timeline of Phillip’s injury and how staff reacted to it are detailed in the ministry report.

At roughly 2:30 p.m. on October 28, a personal support worker called a registered nurse to Phillip’s room, pointing to blood on his bed sheet. When the worker rolled up Phillip’s pant leg, the nurse saw a “large laceration” on his outer right shin. The nurse reported seeing “some white stuff, appeared like bone.”

This registered nurse left Phillip without assessing him, the inspection report said, and went to ask another nurse to measure and cover the wound. The first nurse called the ambulance and Phillip’s family. Nobody called the police or ministry.

The second nurse went to another part of the home to find a measuring tape before arriving in Phillip’s room, later telling the ministry inspector the wound was “deep with sloughs and it was so bad (she/he) could not look at it to measure the wound.”

This second nurse left Phillip’s room without assessing him, the report said, and went to find a third nurse.

The third nurse arrived and measured the wound at five centimetres by five centimetres, and covered it with gauze and a bandage. Kathleen said she believes the wound was larger.

The ministry inspection report said the three nurses and two personal support workers directly involved “denied any knowledge” of the cause of the injury, with staff saying it likely happened between Phillip’s lunch and 2:30 p.m.

While the inspection report doesn’t conclude what caused the injury, it notes a personal support worker’s admission that she “transferred,” or moved, Phillip on her own, even though his care plan had been updated a day earlier to say he was so unsteady on his feet that he needed two people to help him. (He weighed more than 200 pounds.)

When the inspector later tried to re-create how Phillip had been transferred into bed, she found that her knee pressed against the knob and a flat piece of metal connecting the knob with the sides of the bed rail. The report said the flat piece of metal “was not smooth.” Kathleen said the inspector told her that this detail was considered an observation, not a conclusion of what caused the injury.

The inspector noted that the home’s director of care later “acknowledged the nursing team and the physiotherapy team did not collaborate with each other” in regards to Phillip’s assessments and the requirement he have two-worker transfers.

Phillip Kennedy was a family law lawyer in Hamilton until retiring in 2008 

when he and his wife, Teresa, moved in with their daughter in Richmond Hill.

(Steve Russell)

On the day of his injury, after Phillip returned from the dining room in a wheelchair, the lone worker helped him out of the chair and onto the toilet. Then the worker helped him move to his bed. The worker later told the inspector that Phillip did not fall during those transfers. The report said the worker acknowledged that an extra person was required.

After the injury and Phillip’s stay in intensive care, his family requested he be transferred back to Richmond Hill’s Mackenzie Health hospital. On Nov. 19, three weeks after his leg wound, Phillip died. Kathleen said the death report cited her father’s ongoing heart and kidney problems.

The law firm, Howie, Sacks and Henry, is talking to the home through its insurance company, Kathleen said. A lawsuit has not been filed.

“This is a shocking injury,” said the family’s lawyer, Melissa Miller. “No family should have to go through this. No resident of a nursing home should have to go through this.”

Full Article & Source:
An 81-year-old, his gruesome wound, and no explanation from caregivers: The story of Phillip Kennedy’s three days in a Toronto nursing home

SC ranks last in elder abuse protections

Greenville, SC - South Carolina ranks at the bottom of a Wallet Hub study when it comes to resources in place to help prevent abuse.

Many states recognize that elder abuse is a growing issue, especially in nursing homes.

State Rep. Garry Smith (R) Greenville is working to introduce legislation that will make it more difficult for abusers to go from one nursing home to the next without being tracked.

"The agencies and departments do a real good job following up on the reports, but the legislature has done a very poor job. It's also something that we need to do to protect those who cannot protect themselves," Rep. Smith said in a phone interview.

Senior Action Executive Director Andrea Smith says that nearly 5 percent of our aging population will live in a nursing home at the end of their life.

According to WalletHub, one in five U.S. residents will be retirement age by 2030, meaning more aging adults will eventually need assistance and could potentially become vulnerable to care takers.

"Giving not only support for the seniors but for the family members that are caring for them is another important thing that we as a community really need to get our arms around. How do we support the folks that are taking care of seniors," Smith says.

Andrea and her staff know that knowledge is power, so they teach those who visit the center how to take care of themselves, emotionally, mentally and physically.

 John and Shirley Wichmann appreciate the support.

They regularly visit the Senior Action facility to see friends and get educated on issues that affect them.

"There also are classes about things like abuse, if someone is hurting you or if something is happening how you can report it, how you can be careful and let people know or you can let someone here know or it can be taken care of," Shirley said. 


Full Article & Source:
SC ranks last in elder abuse protections