Two arrested in elderly abuse case (Source: Warren County Sheriff's Department)
By China Lee
VICKSBURG,
Miss. (WLBT) - A second woman has been arrested after a disturbing
video surfaced on social media showing an elderly woman being abused.
Warren
County Sheriff Martin Pace said that Monique Weimer, 31, of Vicksburg
turned herself in to Detective Stacy Rollison at the Warren County
Sheriff Department Tuesday.
Weimer is charged with Accessory Before The Fact to Inflicting Physical Pain or injury on a Vulnerable Person.
She
had her initial court appearance in justice court. Her bail was set
this afternoon in Justice Court at $50,000. But she remains in police
custody at the Warren County Jail.
A Texas woman surrendered earlier this week.
Sheriff
Pace says Myesha Wills, 30, of Arlington, TX was accompanied by her
attorney on May 28th when she surrendered to the Warren County Sheriff’s
Department.
Wills is charged with felonious infliction of physical pain or injury on a vulnerable person.
Some personality traits may be linked to certain pre-dementia conditions, a study concluded.
Researchers recently
published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society a study
that looked at five personality traits — neuroticism, extraversion,
conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness — and their link to
certain pre-dementia conditions, namely motoric cognitive risk (MCR), which is characterized by
“the presence of cognitive complaints and slow gait in older
individuals without dementia or mobility disability," and mild cognitive
impairment (MCI) syndromes, or a “slight but noticeable and measurable
decline in cognitive abilities, including memory and thinking skills,”
as defined by the Alzheimer's Association.
The
study involved 524 adults in Westchester County, New York, who were
over the age of 65 and had not been diagnosed with dementia at the
beginning of the study. The participants were observed for three years,
after which time 38 of them developed MCR, while 69 developed MCI, according to the study.
Openness was associated with a 6 percent reduced risk of developing MCR, the study found.
(iStock)
The researchers found that neuroticism was associated with a 6
percent increased risk of developing non-amnestic MCI, or when “memory
remains intact, but one or more other cognitive abilities — such as
language, visual-spatial skills, or executive functioning — are
impaired,” the researchers explained in a news release regarding the findings.
Openness, meanwhile, was associated with a 6 percent reduced risk of developing MCR.
The
researchers said while their findings did not determine a cause and
effect, they do “emphasize the importance of accounting for aspects of
personality when assessing for dementia risk” from a clinical
perspective, said study co-author Emmeline Ayers of the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine, in a statement.
"While more studies are
needed, our results provide evidence that personality traits play an
independent role in the risk for or protection against specific
pre-dementia syndromes," she added.
The research builds on
existing evidence of a link between certain personality traits and
cognitive decline, a doctor who was not a part of the study told Newsweek.
Coronavirus: How to protect nursing home residents Dr. Gregory Poland of Mayo Clinic an immunogenetic expert suggests nursing homes need better training and practices.
USA TODAY
by Marisa Kwiatkowski, Tricia L. Nadolny, Jessica Priest, Mike Stucka
The Feb. 29 death of a Washington state nursing
home resident signaled a warning to long-term care facilities throughout
the country. The coronavirus was no longer a specter; it was here and
it could sweep through a vulnerable population, leaving a trail of
grief.
Yet facilities and government leaders
were still unprepared for the onslaught of COVID-19 cases and
deaths. Dozens more would die at the facility in Kirkland,
Washington. The same staggering loss hit home after home: 81 deaths at
the New Jersey Veterans Home at Paramus; 76 deaths at Brighton Rehab and
Wellness Center in Pennsylvania; 60 deaths at the Courtyard Nursing
Care Center in Massachusetts.
Over the last
three months, more than 40,600 long-term care residents and workers have
died of COVID-19 – about 40% of the nation’s death toll attributed to
the coronavirus, according to an analysis of state data gathered by USA
TODAY. That number eclipses a count released Monday by
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal
government’s first attempt at a comprehensive tally. CMS said 25,923
residents had died, but its number
only includes federally regulated nursing homes, not assisted living
facilities.
Even USA TODAY’s larger total – which amounts to roughly 450 COVID-19
elder care facility deaths per day is an undercount. Seven states did
not provide the number of deaths in long-term care. And New York, the
state with the most resident deaths, doesn’t include those who had been
transferred to hospitals in its count of long-term care fatalities.
The incomplete picture of the problem and
the deficiencies that contributed to that devastating death toll – such
as limited testing, a lack of personal protective equipment and lax
infection control – remain a significant hurdle. As states
lift restrictions on life outside of nursing homes’ doors, experts worry
the threat of the virus getting inside facilities is only increasing.
"We're
at a very fragile point right now," said Katie Smith Sloan, president
and CEO of LeadingAge, a national association of nonprofit providers of
aging services. "Because as states and communities begin to reopen, we
still have no more than a patchwork plan for protecting older lives."
More than 2.4 million people live in long-term
care settings, including the nation’s roughly 15,400 federally
regulated nursing homes and nearly 42,400 assisted living communities,
according to the American Health Care Association and National Center
for Assisted Living.
To date, 37 states have
released at least partial lists of facilities with cases of COVID-19,
but many were slow to make that move. Texas, Virginia and Arizona are
among the states that still do not release facility-level data.
CMS said it would be releasing
the facility-specific information it collected later this week. But
about 20% of facilities did not report information, the agency said. And
though CMS said it has encouraged nursing homes to report all cases and
deaths, it only required numbers going back to early May.
In
a statement, a CMS spokeswoman said the agency has been proactive in
communicating with nursing homes and offering guidance throughout the
pandemic. On Monday, the agency announced more aggressive infection
control measures, including increasing fines for persistent violations
and withholding funds from states that don’t inspect every nursing home
in the coming months.
Nursing homes struggled with infection control far
before the pandemic. Seventy-five percent of U.S. nursing homes have
been cited for failing to properly monitor and control infections in the
past three years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal inspection data.
Less
than two weeks later, a nurse at Life Care Center of Kirkland raised
concerns about a cluster of residents with respiratory infections,
according to federal inspection records. No one reported it to county
health officials until Feb. 26. Meanwhile, more and more residents
became ill.
In total, more than 110 residents and staff at the facility would test positive for COVID-19.
By
the time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its
report on the outbreak on March 18, COVID-19 had infiltrated nursing
homes across the country. Today, more than 9,600 long-term care
facilities have reported at least one case of COVID-19, according to USA
TODAY’s analysis. More than 208,000 people at those facilities have
tested positive. That number includes at least 38,600 employees.
"What’s
happening in nursing homes today and other long-term care facilities is
a national disgrace," Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president and chief
advocacy and engagement officer at the AARP, said last week during an
event hosted by Axios. "On Feb. 29, Washington state reported the first
COVID-19 outbreak in a long-term care facility and here we are, three
months later, and we still don’t have a solid, consistent action plan
across the country."
'This didn't have to happen'
Cloaked
in a paper gown and face mask, Maria Porteus watched the slow rise and
fall of her father’s chest as he lay propped in bed at Luxor Nursing and
Rehab at Mills Pond, a New York nursing home. His breathing sounded
like firecrackers.
Two weeks earlier, on
March 25, Luxor had followed a directive from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and
accepted a hospital patient who had tested positive for
COVID-19. Porteus said she wasn’t told. If she had been, she says she or
her brother would have brought their father, Carlos Gallegos, to live
with them at home.
Carlos Gallegos stands with his grandchildren, Daniel
Porteus, 20, and Celina Porteus, 25, on Thanksgiving in
2019. Gallegos died April 9 at Luxor Nursing and Rehab at
Mills Pond in New York. Photo Submitted by Maria
Porteus
Instead, she
said she first learned that the facility had cases of COVID-19 when a
nurse called to say her father was running a 102-degree fever. On April
9, she and her brother stood at the foot of his bed and touched his
blanketed feet with their gloved hands. He died later that night.
A
spokesman for the facility said Luxor’s staff were deeply saddened by
Gallegos’ death but would not comment on how he contracted the virus.
"I would be at peace if this had been God's will," Porteus said through tears. "But this didn't have to happen."
The
first months of the pandemic have been marked by complaints from
families who say they have been kept in the dark about what is happening
in their loved ones' facilities.
Lori Smetanka, executive director of the National
Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, said she is concerned about
the amount of information available to the public and the fact that CMS
only required facilities to report numbers going back to early May.
"That
leaves almost three months of kind of a black hole where we don't have
data on what's been happening in these facilities in some cases," she
said. "We can't successfully move forward and look at not only what
happened, but what we can do to improve, if we don't have the data."
There are inconsistencies both in what is being tracked and what is being released at the state level.
In
Michigan, the state health department for months failed to track
COVID-19 cases in its more than 1,000 assisted living facilities. A
spokeswoman said the state began collecting that information on May 22
but doesn’t have plans to release it publicly at this time.
In
New York, the state's official count of long-term care residents who
have died doesn’t include those transferred to hospitals or other health
care settings. Facilities are required to report those deaths to the
state, but officials at the New York State Health Department said only
deaths at the facility are included in the public tally to avoid
double-counting. A spokesman said the state "has provided the public
with the clearest possible understanding" of the virus' impact from the
start of the pandemic. He did not respond to questions about how many
deaths of long-term care residents have been reported by facility owners
but not publicly disclosed by the state.
Other
states may also be undercounting long-term care fatalities. At
least seven states – including Massachusetts, Florida and Louisiana –
track deaths in part by matching the deceased’s address to the
address of a care facility, potentially leaving out those who were
staying at a facility short-term. And at least 17 states use information
reported by facilities, with operators keeping track of residents who
are transferred to a hospital.
In Pennsylvania, officials released
a list of 557 facilities with COVID-19 cases for the first time on May
19. Almost immediately, the state health care association said the list
was riddled with mistakes and demanded the errors be fixed. State
officials made numerous updates to the data, including lowering the
number of deaths and cases at some facilities.
Nate Wardle, spokesman for the department, said the state had relied upon its own disease surveillance system because many facilities either missed the May 17 deadline to report information to the state or provided current, not cumulative, numbers.
"We
have recognized there were some issues with the initial report. We are
working through those," Wardle said. "In the future, this won’t be an
issue because the facilities are going to be reporting the data
themselves."
‘They are more vulnerable’
On
Mother’s Day, visitors to River Garden Senior Services in Jacksonville,
Florida, were given temperature checks at the guard booth before
handing over the flowers and candy they brought for their loved ones.
Their gifts were delivered by employees.
CEO
Martin Goetz said families haven‘t been allowed inside the facility
since mid-March, and he doesn’t see that changing
without regular testing, given that asymptomatic staff and visitors
could unknowingly bring the virus on campus.
Martin Goetz, CEO of River Garden Senior Services. Photo Provided by Martin Goetz
The 600 residents and employees at his facility
will be tested this week as part of a state plan to expand testing at
long-term care facilities. But Goetz doesn’t know when that will happen
again. He said he doesn’t believe River Garden has had any cases of
COVID-19 and hopes testing will confirm that the facility is
coronavirus-free.
"Without continuous testing
and contact tracing and a stable environment out in the community, I
will not open this campus," Goetz said.
CMS
last month outlined a cautious plan for reopening the nation’s nursing
homes. Leaving the final decision up to state and local governments, the
agency encouraged facilities to meet several criteria before
relaxing restrictions on visitation, including having an adequate level
of personal protective equipment and no new cases of COVID-19 within the
home for four weeks. The plan also takes into account the prevalence of
cases in the surrounding community.
The agency recommended weekly testing of staff and residents.
Seniors vulnerable amid coronavirus
Older adults and persons with underlying health conditions are more susceptible to COVID-19
Most states are far from hitting that benchmark, a USA TODAY survey of state health departments in mid-May found.
At
least eight states – including Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina and
Nevada – said they were prioritizing testing either in facilities with
confirmed cases or when individuals exhibit symptoms. About 14 states –
including Kentucky, Maryland, and Wisconsin – are requiring testing of
all residents and staff, regardless of the presence of an outbreak. New
York is requiring staff be tested twice weekly.
In West Virginia, the first state to commit to
universal testing in long-term care communities, officials said testing
across all 123 facilities identified 28 new homes with the virus.
Several other states working toward universal testing recently told USA
TODAY that the first round would not be complete until the end of May or
early June, leaving questions about whether they could achieve the kind
of regularity experts say is needed to keep COVID-19 out of
facilities.
Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar
at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said state governments
need to be doing more to help facilities not only ramp up testing but
secure access to personal protective equipment, fill staffing gaps and
address other daily challenges. She said she
worries the conversation surrounding nursing homes – including efforts
to publicly name those with cases – has been focused on placing blame
rather than providing assistance to solve systemic problems.
"I
don't think it should come from a position of antagonism with these
facilities," Nuzzo said. “It has to be a partnership with government.
Regular eyes on these facilities. Have people visit them. Assess them on
a routine basis to make sure they have exactly what they need. Having
regular calls to identify problems early so that they can figure out
solutions before outbreaks occur."
As communities begin to open up, Nuzzo said now is not the time to reopen nursing homes.
"Nursing
homes are not any safer today than they were a month ago, two months
ago," she said. "In fact, they are more vulnerable."
Without
an end in sight, home operators need to do more to connect residents
with their loved ones outside, said Eric Carlson, a directing attorney
at Justice in Aging. CMS in March encouraged nursing homes to make that a
priority. But Carlson said the agency needs to require nursing
facilities – which have received federal money to support their response
to the pandemic – to use technology to make sure families stay
connected. He also said more can be done under the current federal
guidelines, which ban visitors except in certain "compassionate cases."
"Some
facilities have just read that very rigidly as including only
end-of-life situations, and then further limiting that by defining end
of life as the absolute end of life," he said. "You'd like to see some
more discretion in there, recognizing when it might be particularly
important for a particular resident or residents to receive a visit from
family members."
Patty Ducayet, who has been
Texas’s long-term care ombudsman for 14 years, said she sees a growing
desperation among families, now separated from their loved ones for
months. Children worry parents with dementia will forget who they are.
Ducayet
shares their concern and wonders: what is the path to residents again
enjoying the comfort of a hug, to seeing the face of a loved one not
filtered through a pane of glass.
"We have got
to find a balance here, and we cannot isolate residents
indefinitely," she said. "We would be changing the fabric of our
long-term care system. And it would be cruel."
Contributing: Trevor
Ballantyne, Jo Ciavaglia, Tony Cook, Anjeanette Damon, Pat Ferrier,
John Heasly, Jeannette Hinkle, Emily Hopkins, Daveen Rae Kurutz, Mary
Landers, Dak Le, Arpan Lobo, James O'Neill, A. Drew Smith and Joshua
Solomon, USA TODAY Network
CONSUMER ALERT: Attorney General Carr Issues Warning Against Financial Exploitation of Older Adults during Covid-19
May 29, 2020
ATLANTA, GA –
Attorney General Chris Carr is warning older Georgians, their families
and their caretakers to be on the lookout for signs of financial
exploitation, especially with regard to the recent issuance of federal
stimulus checks.
“Georgia has a robust
Elder Abuse Law that covers financial exploitation,” says Attorney
General Carr. “The law also contains unique protections for individuals
residing in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. We are on the
lookout for individuals and organizations that are taking advantage of
older adults with regard to their stimulus checks. Our Consumer
Protection Division, Prosecution Division and Medicaid Fraud Division
will work together with other law enforcement partners to see that bad
actors are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Exploitation of Older
Adults is generally defined as taking away property or money or
otherwise misusing the financial resources of an older adult or disabled
person for another’s gain. This can include taking a Social Security or
Economic Stimulus check without consent or having a Power of Attorney
document or other documents signed without the victim knowing what
he/she is signing, or forging his/her signature.
If citizens suspect abuse, neglect, and exploitation of this population, the resources below can assist in reporting the matter:
To report abuse, neglect, and exploitation of an older adult or
disabled adult who lives in a private residence, contact your local
police and Adult Protective Services at 1-866-552-4464 – Press “3” or www.aging.ga.gov then click the Report Elder Abuse tab.
To
report abuse, neglect, and exploitation of an older adult, disabled
adult or resident in a facility, contact Healthcare Facility Regulation:
1-800-878-6442.
To access information on long-term supports and
services, services in the home and community, or support for
individuals and family members who are aging or living with a
disability, contact Georgia’s Aging and Disability Resource Connection
(ADRC) to locate an office in your area: www.georgiaadrc.com.
Medicaid recipients
who reside in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, along with
their family members, should make sure that the economic stimulus
payments of these residents are not utilized by the facility or
individuals working in the facility. Although Medicaid recipients may
sometimes be required to sign over certain resources to the facility
where they reside, this does not apply to the economic stimulus
payments. Congress, under the CARES Act, has designated these payments
as “tax credits,” which means the monies lawfully belong to the
recipients and cannot be taken by a nursing home or assisted living
facility.
If you believe that the stimulus payment of a Medicaid recipient who
resides in a nursing home or assisted living facility was improperly
taken by the facility, you can contact the Attorney General’s Medicaid
Fraud Control Division by calling (404) 656-5400 or by emailingreport_medicaid_fraud@law.ga.gov.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP)
A group working to prevent the financial exploitation of New
Hampshire’s elderly residents has launched a statewide public awareness
campaign to connect victims and those at risk with trusted sources of
help.
The New Hampshire Financial Abuse Specialty
Team was created in 2013 and includes representatives from several state
agencies, financial institutions and advocacy groups.
Its new campaign is called “Stay Connected NH” and includes TV and radio ads.
Attorney General Gordon MacDonald says
financial exploitation is a growing threat in New Hampshire, and that
raising awareness is crucial.
RE: Current Status Case for Debbie Dahmer’s father- George Dahmer
aka Former Professional Wrestler regarding Punitive Damages Case in FL.
Debbie’s mother was MANDATED in June 2015 to pay 50% of the Punitive
Damages Awarded by the Jury to Help Improve The Quality Care In Nursing
Homes-(Totally Injustice).
FS 400.0238 Punitive Damages; Limitationshttp://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?mode… b) A
settlement agreement entered into between the original parties to the
action after a verdict has been returned must provide a proportionate
share payable to the Quality of Long-Term Care Facility Improvement
Trust Fund specified herein. For purposes of this paragraph, a
proportionate share is a 50-percent share of that percentage of the
settlement amount which the punitive damages portion of the verdict bore
to the total of the compensatory and punitive damages in the verdict.
2)Expenditures from the trust fund shall be allowable for direct support of the following:
(a) Development
and operation of a mentoring program, in consultation with the
Department of Health and the Department of Elderly Affairs, for
increasing the competence, professionalism, and career preparation of
long-term care facility direct care staff, including nurses, nursing
assistants, and social service and dietary personnel.
(b)Development
and implementation of specialized training programs for long-term care
facility personnel who provide direct care for residents with
Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, residents at risk of developing pressure sores, and residents with special nutrition and hydration needs.
In Nov-2012 The Jury Trail found the
Nursing Home GUILTY on all charges of WRONGFUL DEATH and FALSIFYING
RECORDS on George Dahmer. Punitive Damages were Appealed 3 times and LOST.
George Dahmer was diagnosed at 2nd nursing home May -2008: (1) Bed Sores Stage 4 (down to the bone) (2)Lost 32 pounds in 2 months, (3) Dehydration, (4) Malnutrition, (5)Both Rotary Caps were turned where they dropped him (6) Decubitus ulcers On both heels of his feet and tailbone stage, Later admitted at hospital , they wanted to amputate both feet (7) Over-medicated (8) Lost lower and upper parcel plates
George could walk, talk, and feed himself when admission
for Temporary Stay for 120 days into nursing home end of 02/2008 for
meds evaluation cause he ran away from home. Dahmer Family DEMANDED him
out of nursing home and be transferred to 2 nursing home 05/2008- he
couldn’t walk, talk, or feed himself. This was so sad and
heartbreaking.. TOTAL DEVASTATION!
The Dahmer family is looking for Total Justice for George Dahmer
and other victims out there. George loved his family, friends, and
fans.. We Love Him too always..PlZ STAND With Us! TY!~
>>>FORMER FLORIDA BILLS THAT HAVE BEEN IN LEGISLATION BUT HAVE DIED: 3 Attempts
Long-Term Care Facility Responsibility; Authorizes AHCA to revoke
license or deny license renewal or change of ownership application of
nursing home facility that fails to pay judgment or settlement agreement
within specified timeframe; requires nursing home facility to maintain
certain level of liability insurance coverage; revises percentages of
punitive damages awarded to claimant & deposited in Quality of
Long-Term Care Facility Improvement Trust Fund; requires nursing homes
& ALFs to report professional liability claims & actions to
Office of Insurance Regulation.
Effective Date: 7/1/2018 Last Action: 3/10/2018 House– Died in Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee
Punitive Damages; Removes provisions requiring
portion of punitive damages awarded for certain claims relating to
nursing homes & assisted living facilities be deposited into Quality
of Long-Term Care Facility Improvement Trust Fund.
Effective Date: 7/1/2019 Last Action: 5/3/2019 House – Died in Civil Justice Subcommittee
Punitive Damages; Removes provisions requiring
portion of punitive damages awarded for certain claims relating to
nursing homes & assisted living facilities to be deposited into
Quality of Long-Term Care Facility Improvement Trust Fund.
Effective Date: 7/1/2020 Last Action: 3/14/2020 House – Died in Judiciary Committee
Another Florida Bill will be introduced into Legislation for 2021
at the end of summer 2020 to remove Punitive Damages from going into
Trust Fund by Rep Amber Mariano. Please CALL or EMAIL your State
Representatives & Senators and ask them to Co-Sponsor this new bill
when it is introduced… When New FL Bill is Introduced will keep everyone
informed on The PPJ Gazette….
(202) 224-3121- Contact Congress! Also Request that they submit new bills to Improve Nursing Homes for Residents/Patients.
VIA Debbie Dahmer: May 23rd, 2020
will be my wonderful father and best friends 12 year death anniversary.
Miss and love him everyday. He was a loving and caring father. That is
why myself & family fight so hard for him to seek Total Justice! He
so well deserves.. Want to know he didn’t die in vain..06/19/35 –
05/23/08 May he RIP!~
Cobb County Superior Court (photo by Larry Felton Johnson)
Posted By: Larry Felton Johnson
Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes and liveSAFE Resources announced a federal grant to expand the work of Cobb’s Elder Abuse Multidisciplinary Team (MDT).
The grant was from U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, under the Transforming America’s Response to Elder Abuse
program, and the grant period runs through September of 2022.
According to a public information release from the Cobb DA’s office,
“The District Attorney has partnered with liveSAFE Resources, Inc. and
the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force for years on elder-abuse issues and community responses to victims.”
“The money will help Cobb’s Elder MDT expand
services to elderly and disabled victims of abuse, neglect and
exploitation,” the news release said.
“liveSAFE Resources is thrilled to be part of the Enhanced
Multi-Disciplinary Team Grant project! As the local service provider for
survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and elder abuse, we
have learned that it takes a whole-community approach to address abuse,”
said Tracey B. Atwater, Executive Director. “This grant will give us
the opportunity to strengthen our coordinated response to the neglect
and abuse of vulnerable adults, support victims, and hold offenders
accountable.”
Cobb’s Elder Abuse MDT includes professionals from various offices
and agencies, “including police, fire, prosecutors, Adult Protective
Services, the Atlanta Regional Commission and others, to discuss the
most effective ways to proceed in particular cases where an elder person
or disabled adult has suffered abuse, neglect or financial
exploitation.”
New coordinator chosen for Cobb’s Elder MDT
Larami Floyd has been selected as the new coordinator of Cobb’s Elder
Abuse MDT, replacing Paula Dobbs, who oversaw the creation of the
project.
“This role was a natural next step for me as
I have always preferred working in a way where I could better serve my
community,” Floyd said in the public information release. “The elder
population is especially near and dear to my heart and through this
position I will be able to better support and aid this generation.”
Floyd has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Kennesaw State University, where she also achieved her bachelor’s degree in Sociology.
She spent four years as a victim advocate with the Cobb District
Attorney’s office, and before that worked as a victim advocate in
Paulding County.
Cobb’s Elder Abuse Multidisciplinary Team
The Courier asked Kimberly Isaza, the public information officer for
the Cobb County District Attorney’s office, what the relationship is
between the Cobb’s Elder Abuse Multidisciplinary Team and the Cobb Elder
Abuse Task Force.
She answered in an email, “They are
separate, though some people participate in both. The MDT is restricted
to members of agencies that have signed MOUs to share confidential
information. The CEATF does training for law enforcement but also does
public-awareness events, such as presentations on scams at senior
centers.”
A patient is transported out of Brooklyn's Cobble Hill Health Center in late April. (John Minchillo/AP)
By Debbie Cenziper, Peter Whoriskey and Joel Jacobs
More than 25,000 residents died and 60,000 were infected as the coronavirus
swept through U.S. nursing homes in recent months, particularly
affecting facilities with a history of low marks for staffing and
patient care, the federal government reported Monday.
The
virus also infected 34,000 staff and took the lives of more than 400,
according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal
agency that oversees the nation’s nursing homes.
The
numbers represent the first official national accounting of fatalities
in the 15,000 nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.
The tally, however, is incomplete. Only about 80 percent of the nation’s
nursing homes reported data to the federal government, and they were
required only to include cases since early May.
CMS
officials nevertheless said they were confident the figures offer a
reliable snapshot of the pandemic in the nation’s hard-hit nursing
homes.
“This represents a good picture of where we’ve
been,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a call with reporters
Monday afternoon.
A Washington Post accounting
of cases and deaths in nursing homes shows a higher toll and that tally
rounds up data from less than half of the states. Based on reports from
21 states since the beginning of the pandemic, The Post found that more
than 28,000 residents have died.
Of the homes
that reported data to CMS, 1 in 5 recorded at least one death from
covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 1 in 4 had at least
one positive case. In the District of Columbia and three states — New
Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts — more than 1 in 10 nursing home
residents died, according to the data collected so far by CMS.
An early analysis by CMS showed that nursing homes that have received
poor marks for nurse staffing and patient care were more likely to see
higher case counts than those with stronger track records.
Statistical analyses touted by the industry, by contrast, suggest that
the outbreaks have little to do with the quality of nursing homes.
Instead, studies indicate that a home’s location and size are better
predictors of an outbreak.
"Significant research from leading health experts, including analysis
from Harvard Medical School and Brown University as well as testimony
to Congress by the University of Chicago, has shown no correlation
between covid-19 outbreak and [Medicare’s] star rating system,” said
Beth Martino, American Health Care Association senior vice president of
public affairs, referring to the government’s quality grades for nursing
homes. “In fact, the first covid case was at a five-star rated
facility. As this research shows, the amount of covid-19 cases in
nursing homes has been directly linked to the level of the virus in the
surrounding local community.”
On Monday, Verma focused heavily on infection
control, saying the agency would strengthen enforcement, including civil
penalties, of nursing homes with persistent violations of federal
standards meant to prevent the spread of illness. The move, according to
CMS, would “help prevent backsliding, improve accountability and ensure
prompt compliance."
Nursing homes across the
country have struggled with infection control both before and during the
pandemic. In April, a Post analysis of about 650 homes with cases of
the coronavirus found that 40 percent had been cited more than once for
infection control deficiencies in recent years.
Verma said the agency will distribute $80 million to states to increase
infection-control inspections of nursing homes during the pandemic.
States that fail to inspect all Medicare-certified homes by July 31 will
be required to submit a corrective plan to the federal government.
Those still lagging by August will lose some of the money.
The new federal data, while limited, comes after months of criticism
from watchdog groups and patients’ families, who argued that
transparency is critical during a public health emergency. Since the
first known outbreak at a nursing home, in Washington state in February,
some states have repeatedly declined to name affected facilities or
describe the scale of the problem, forcing families to plead for
information from homes that were often reluctant to release details.
“I think people have a right to know what’s going on — and not all this
hiding,” said Toby Edelman, a senior policy attorney at the nonprofit
Center for Medicare Advocacy. “If the nursing homes would just tell the
truth, people would respect them a lot more than this language about ‘We
love our residents.’”
In April, CMS announced that all nursing homes
would be required to report case information to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on a weekly basis. CMS requested data by May 17
but gave nursing homes a two-week grace period to report. The agency
also announced a new rule requiring nursing homes to report cases to all
residents and their families.
Mark Parkinson,
president of the American Health Care Association and National Center
for Assisted Living, said the newly reported numbers validate the need
for widespread testing and more support for nursing homes.
“Especially
as we continue to expand testing for residents and staff in long term
care centers in June, we should anticipate the number of cases to rise
as asymptomatic residents and staff will be identified," he said. "While
an increase in these reported numbers may be startling, it will improve
our ability to confront this threat and protect our residents.”
The
data released on Monday did not include case or death counts for
individual homes. Those numbers are expected to be released on Thursday.
Jacobs is a graduate student in journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill Investigative Lab.
Theresa Carter, left, is known as DJ Happy Feet, and Virginia Hawsey
broadcasts as DJ Ginger Bee. Both are DJs on Radio Recliner, a new
online radio station where elderly folks who have been locked down
during the pandemic broadcast their favorite tunes. (Photo by Radio
Recliner)
By Marc Fisher
They’re
locked down, deprived of the simple joys they had found in life’s
waning light. The tables in the dining room are empty. The bingo room is
silent.
In
nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and retirement communities
from coast to coast, they’re confined to quarters, quarantined against a
virus that has attacked the elderly harder than anyone else. At a stage
when their big adversaries often are time and loneliness, they are by
themselves, in their rooms, indefinitely.
But
Elvis is there with them. And Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, Glenn
Miller and Glen Campbell (and Kelly Clarkson, too). The Eagles keep them
company, and the Stones, even Pink Floyd.
On Radio Recliner, a new online
radio station, the DJs are elderly folks who have spent the past two
months stuck in their rooms, meals delivered to their doors, activities
canceled, their relatives relegated to waving through a window, at best.
At a time of great fear and risk — old-age home residents make up about
40 percent of the nation’s deaths from the virus — the disc jockeys get
to tell stories of better times as they spin their favorite tunes, from
Elvis and ’40s big band tunes to ’60s rock (including the hard stuff)
and a whole lot of love songs.
“We don’t
have time to be sad, not at our age,” DJ M&M — real name: Marion
Murray — tells her audience of nursing home residents and the relatives
who worry about them. “We got to keep moving. It’s too important to just
sit in a chair and fall asleep.”
Virginia
Hawsey, broadcasting as DJ Ginger Bee, describes the imaginary road
trips she and her next-door neighbor take from their rooms to the beach.
Theresa Carter chose DJ Happy Feet as her on-air moniker because, even
at 89, she still believes in the power of dance, in how a rumba can
electrify even the loneliest person.
They’re stuck in rooms where the TV delivers a diet of disease and fear,
and the phone cannot replace the hugs and laughs that used to be just
down the hall. Yet on Radio Recliner, the tunes are chipper, the patter
is cheery, and the people behind the microphones are chock full of
stories that put this whole wretched mess out of mind, at least for a
bit.
Lois Pixley, left, who goes by DJ Miss Fancy Pants, and John Gait. Both are DJs on Radio Recliner. (Photo by Radio Recliner)
The DJs have been here before — not precisely, but close enough. They
spent childhood summers trapped inside because going out meant being
exposed to the polio virus. They suffered months-long interruptions of
love affairs because their fella was shipped off to war. And in the last
chapter of their lives, they ended up in these places — pleasant
enough, they say, but still, a difficult, final pivot from homes they
knew and loved.
Every hour
of Radio Recliner is packed with what was on the air when they first
fell in love, when they learned that heartache is one of those words
that doesn’t come close to describing what it really feels like.
“Isolation
is really a hard thing for seniors in the best of times,” said Mitch
Bennett, chief creative officer at Luckie, the marketing company that
puts together Radio Recliner for Bridge Senior Living,
a company that owns about two dozen retirement homes. “Now they can’t
even get together and see each other for meals. But they all grew up
with this dedication-style radio, where you can send a message to loved
ones and tell stories with music, and it’s a kind of magic. And most of
them are literally doing it from their recliners.”
Anyone
can listen to the station at RadioRecliner.com, but the target audience
is the more than 2 million Americans who live in old-age facilities and
the many more family members who have been unable to visit elderly
relatives since the virus hit hard. Relatives can call in, record their
requests and dedicate songs to isolated elders.
About
three dozen DJs have recorded sets, originally from homes owned by
Bridge, but now from facilities across the country. They perform their
patter by phone and professional producers then insert the music and the
Radio Recliner jingle and stitch together shows that stream
around-the-clock.
These first-time DJs know what to do. They grew up listening to shows like the “Make Believe Ballroom,” whose DJ pretended to be the emcee at a swanky Manhattan nightclub where the hottest bands played every night; and Wolfman Jack’s growling narration of the night from a pirate station somewhere deep in Mexico; and Cousin Brucie’s teen club of the airwaves, where every kid in the country was your cuz and Brucie was the older kid who made you feel better when that guy in English class wouldn’t return your glance.
Now the kids who listened to those shows are taking their turn playing the songs they danced to when they met the One.
Carter,
sitting in her rooms at the Somerby home in Mobile, Ala., chose the big
band sounds she listened to as a little girl in the Bronx. She’d
jitterbug around her apartment when Harry James’s band came on “Make
Believe Ballroom” on WNEW.
“I
married a man who didn’t like to dance,” she said. “But I made him
promise, whenever we went to a wedding, he had to dance with me at least
once.”
They were married for 58 years before he died 11 years ago. He always kept his promise.
Now
alone, working on crossword and jigsaw puzzles, doing exercises along
with an instructor on TV, Carter will play a tune and “even at this
stage of the game, I’ll do a little step,” she said. “Some people don’t
know how to spend the time. The loneliness is the hardest part of being
old. But it’s about how you accept it. I’ve always kept myself busy. And
I have the Lord, and I’m okay with him.”
Bone Coleman, a.k.a. DJ Karaoke Cowboy, left, and Marion Murray — DJ M&M. (Photo by Radio Recliner)
Murray, 79, used her time on Radio Recliner to recall the music she and
her husband shared. “We were young and he used to sing ‘Peggy Sue’ to
me,” DJ M&M tells her audience. “When he sang that to me, he would
just make my heart . . . just melt. He did sing that so good. It was
just perfect.”
She sings
it out: “Peggy Sue, I love you,” and she giggles, and her voice, grown
scratchy through the years, fades, and up comes Buddy Holly, eternally
young, romancing Peggy Sue, “with a love so rare and true.”
This
is a rough time, M&M says, but she urges listeners to remember what
makes life still worth living. For her, it’s Bubbles the cat, her only
companion in her room at the Enclave in Franklin, Mass.
“I
dedicate ‘Tiny Bubbles’ to my Bubbles because she’s a wonderful cat and
I love her dearly, with all my heart,” she says. “She sleeps with me.
She sits in the chair with me. I mean, we’re just buddies.” And Don Ho’s
1967 lounge hit “Tiny Bubbles” swells, the crooner singing of “a feeling that I’m gonna love you till the end of time.”
Some
of the DJs are in hospice care and some are on memory wards, reserved
for people who have lost much of their identities. But give them their
music and some piece of their former selves emerges, Bennett said.
“The music
gives them a direct line to their deepest memories,” he said. “This is
just the most special thing I’ve been involved with in my career.”
The
music helps, but still, this isolation stinks. Hawsey, 82, who lives in
a Somerby independent living facility in Birmingham, Ala., makes no
bones about it: “I’m ready for them to let us out,” she said. She’s been
stuck in her apartment since March 13. Her daughter, who lives nearby,
can’t visit, except to stand on the sidewalk below Hawsey’s balcony.
No lunches out. No church. No canasta. No visits from the musicians who would come to play guitar and sing with the residents.
She
remembered the summer she was 12, when her older sister could go to the
movies, but Virginia had to stay inside because polio was raging, a
virus that hit little kids hardest. Her sister graduated from high
school that spring, and her father went to the ceremonies, but “Mother
wouldn’t leave me, so she didn’t go.”
“Same
thing this year,” Hawsey said. “Our granddaughter is graduating here,
but her parents are in South Africa and they can’t be here.”
The
loneliness is searing enough that when the home’s lifestyle director
offered Hawsey the chance to be a DJ, she put aside her shyness and
signed up for a visit to her past.
“We
didn’t have TV till I was in the 10th grade,” she said. “We listened to
the radio a lot.” Her station was WJHO in Opelika, Ala., which played
lots of Elvis, though, truth be told, no amount was enough.
There
was no question what Hawsey’s show would sound like. “I was just an
Elvis fan,” she said. “He was the highlight of our days.”
On
Radio Recliner, Hawsey spins the hits, including “All Shook Up” and
“Can’t Help Falling in Love.” (“Do you remember who you were dancing
with when you heard that song?” she asks in her intro.) She throws in
lesser-known numbers, such as “Wooden Heart,” the B side of “Blue
Christmas,” on which Presley sang several lines in German.
There’s an
Elvis for every turn in her life. In 1957, she was a teacher in Apopka,
Fla., and she came home to Alabama for the summer. Her boyfriend
visited for a weekend and her younger sister, eager for him to propose
marriage to Virginia, played Presley’s “Treat Me Nice” all weekend.
“Don’t you ever kiss me once, kiss me twice,” Elvis sang. “Treat me nice.”
The
song didn’t do the trick, Hawsey tells listeners. “It still took him a
year and a half to come about” and pop the question, she says, but the
song remained theirs. They were married for 53 years, until Shelton died
three years ago.
There’s an Elvis for this crazy time, too.
“I
don’t know with the virus if we’re going to get out anywhere this
summer,” Hawsey says, “but we can always dream. With my neighbor next
door, I dreamed these last two months: We’ve been to the beach, we’ve
been to North Carolina — all in our dreams. We’ve talked about what we
saw on the way and how tired we were and how we enjoyed seeing the waves
come in . . . ”
Her
voice drifts off and Elvis beckons, in the 1961 song “Blue Hawaii”:
“Come with me / While the moon is on the sea / The night is young / And
so are we, so are we.”
The DJs try not to be overbearing about it, but the topic of coping with the isolation creeps into nearly every show.
“Whenever
you’re bored or lonely, you just think about singing,” DJ M&M says.
“I don’t mind if you make up a song, like I do.” In addition to
singing, Murray prescribes puzzles and knitting; she’s made a dozen hats
so far and is working on a blanket.
For
Radio Recliner, she put together a six-page list of tunes to share. She
plays Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere,” a catalogue of places you
can’t go these days: “I’ve been everywhere, man / Crossed the deserts
bare, man / I’ve breathed the mountain air, man / Of travel I’ve a’had
my share, man.”
Murray loves the road, too, but she’s all for the great indoors right now.
“I
loved the ocean, too, but please, we’re in our rooms,” she said. “We’re
free of the virus here, knock on wood. Some people here want their
lives back the way they were. I tell them, look, this is serious
business, you don’t want to die. This is a good place to live, not to
die.”
