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If you have a loved one in the nursing home, you want to know that they are being cared for properly. When your loved one has a complaint, you may feel uncomfortable bringing the issue to the staff or administration of the facility itself. The ombudsman program is a federal program, which places a representative in each nursing home facility to act on behalf of all the residents. If you have a concern that you want brought up anonymously to the facility, you can talk to the ombudsman and report your complaint.

When You Suspect Outright Abuse

When your loved one has an injury, or they have told you they have been assaulted, they have a right to talk about their concerns with an attorney. You can ask to speak to the ombudsman and let them know that you suspect abuse. They may have resources that you have not thought of, and may be able to guide you in the process of filing an official complaint against the facility. While an ombudsman is always a neutral party, they are volunteers that want the rights of all residents within a facility protected.

When It’s Time to Call an Attorney

If your loved one has been seriously injured, or is reporting that they were sexually assaulted, it’s time to contact an attorney on their behalf. While you may choose to not pursue the case further, going to an attorney for an initial consultation is your best way to see if there is any recourse for the injuries your loved one has sustained. The individual responsible for your loved one’s injuries may have a history of such behavior, and by pursuing a claim against the facility, you will be effectively stopping that individual from perpetrating further abuse on future residents.

If you are worried about a loved one who has told you of nursing home abuse, it’s time to get them the help they deserve.

A very important law in California is silently under attack, and no one knows.  It is a law that was designed to protect vulnerable elders and disabled adults.

In 1991 the California Legislature declared that elderly and dependent adults were at a greater risk of abuse, neglect or abandonment, and that California had a responsibility to protect these vulnerable individuals. In an effort to protect those individuals, California enacted the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (“EADACPA”) in order to make it financially feasible for civil cases to be brought to prove fraudulent and bad acts of nursing home operators that were harming vulnerable people.   Facts discovered and developed in these civil cases have been used by public prosecutors to recover millions in fines for billing fraud against large corporate operators of nursing homes. (See, e.g., “Life Care Centers of America Inc. Agrees to Pay $145 Million…” https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/life-care-centers-america-inc-agrees-pay-145-million-resolve-false-claims-act-allegations; “Nursing Home Operator to Pay $48 Million…” https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nursing-home-operator-pay-48-million-resolve-allegations-six-california-facilities-billed.)

Within the next week, proposed federal legislation known as the “Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017,” (H.R. 1215 – https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1215/text) is likely to be discussed on the floor of the House of Representatives, having made it through committee, and if approved, will go to the Senate floor next week. The proposed legislation puts financial caps on all medical negligence cases in the United States. California has had a cap in place on medical malpractice cases for 40 years. Unfortunately for patients, that cap has done little, if anything, to fix healthcare in California.

Regardless, hidden within H.R. 1215 is language that will expand not just the damage caps nationwide, but will gut elder abuse litigation across the United States. Included in the “Definitions” section of H.R. 1215 it is made clear that nursing homes and any claims made against them will be covered under this new law and cap. Elder Abuse cases will no longer be economically feasible under this new law. Elder Abuse cases against large corporate chains are notoriously expensive, and it typically costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove those large operators are committing fraud. Every case is a ‘David versus Goliath’ battle, and H.R. 1215 takes away our sling.

Should H.R. 1215 pass and be turned into law, cases where elderly and disabled adults suffered substantial injuries and heartbreaking deaths will no longer be feasible. Examples include:

• A nursing home illegally “dumps” a blind and oxygen-dependent resident at a motel with a package of ramen noodles and a non-functioning oxygen tank. Within three days he is dead from a lack of oxygen.

• An 88-year-old stroke sufferer is raped by nursing home worker and contracts genital herpes. (http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/02/health/nursing-home-sex-abuse-investigation/)

• An 80-year-old unattended dementia patient walked out of a locked dementia unit, down multiple streets and parking lots before she was struck at 35 miles per hour by a truck and died as the result of blunt force trauma.

Enactment of H.R. 1215 as currently written, with the inclusion of nursing homes, will leave America’s elderly and disabled population susceptible to increasing abuse, neglect, assault and rape with no recourse. Abusive and neglectful nursing homes will be left to operate without fear of reprisal or liability and will have no financial incentive to provide adequate care.  Any speculative fiscal savings promised by H.R. 1215 will be greatly outweighed by the increase in government costs as well as our absolute duty to protect the vulnerable and infirm.

For all these reasons, we ask you to contact your representatives and tell them you stand on the side of the elderly and disabled, and that you demand they vote against H.R. 1215.

Article is provided by Attorney Kim Valentine who works hand-in-hand with The Ledger Law Firm to stop abuse of our elderly.