Nursing Home Abuse and/or Neglect Attorney

According to a report presented by the WQAD Digital Team on 8/28/17, more than 1 in 4 cases of possible sexual and physical abuse against nursing home patients (“residents”) seems to go unreported to police. The “Health and Human Services” Inspector General conducted an audit (part of a larger ongoing probe) which “identified 134 cases in which hospital E.R. records [spanning a 2-year period from 2015 – 2016] indicated possible neglect and/or sexual or physical assaults on nursing home residents.” “Illinois had the largest number of incidents overall.” Id. To report abuse and/or neglect of your loved one/nursing home resident, call the Illinois Department of Public Health Hotline: 800/252-4343.

Pursuing a nursing home abuse case begins by getting some honest advice from nursing home abuse attorneys like us. We’d be happy to assess the details of your case, so feel free to reach out to us if you’re in the Greater Chicago Area. We’ve previously helped clients from Orland Park, Tinley Park, Park Forest, Chicago Heights, Matteson, and Frankfort, IL, to name a few.

In Illinois, to protect residents from abuse and maintain a standard of care to be followed by Nursing Homes, residents are protected by both federal and state laws. With respect to Illinois state laws, Article II, Part 1 of the Nursing Home Care Act (210 ILCS 45/1-101 et seq.) sets out a list of “Rights” of residents. Among the many Rights enumerated in this section of the Act is set out the right (in 210 ILCS 45/2-105),6 which states: “A resident shall be permitted respect and privacy in his medical and personal care program.”

Unfortunately, poorly and/or understaffed Nursing Homes often fail to supervise those employees who give little regard for the care of residents, let alone treat residents with the respect and privacy due to them in their personal care programs.

If you and/or your family members come to the realization that someone you love must be put into a Nursing Home, you should do some serious investigation before sending your loved one off to any such facility. One of the very first things you MUST investigate before putting your loved one into a nursing home is to determine whether the facility you are considering is BAD.

The “Special Focus Facility program (“SFF”), overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has compiled and shared a list of nearly 400 consistently underperforming nursing homes in the United States – 22 of which were located in Illinois. On 6/3/19, a public report titled “Families’ and Residents’ Right to Know: Uncovering Poor Care in America’s Nursing Homes,” SFF included all nursing homes CMS had found to have a “persistent record of poor care and systemic shortcomings.” Unfortunately, this 6/3/19 Report was never published. If you are investigating nursing homes and want to feel comfortable with enrolling your loved one into a nursing home as a “resident”—you must definitely check this website: https://www.medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare/search.html.This website allows you to find and compare nursing homes certified by Medicare and Medicaid. This website also contains “quality of resident care and staffing information” for more than 15,000 nursing homes around the country. The most important information provided on this website will include how well nursing homes care for their residents. Nursing Homes that have had issues relating to preventing abuse and/or that have had significant issues maintaining compliance to protect resident health and safety are part of the “Special Focus Facility Program.”

In closing, putting your loved one into a nursing home is a tough decision. Most residents of nursing homes are elderly and/or infirm, which makes them highly vulnerable to abuse and/or neglect from nursing home employees and staff. Because of their weakened mental and/or physical conditions, compounded by their high level of dependence upon nursing home employees for assistance with their activities of daily life (ADLs), residents are often victims of neglect, physical and/or sexual abuse and/or psychological trauma from nursing home employees and/or staff. To find out that your loved one has been abused and/or neglected at that nursing home is both traumatic and heartbreaking, to say the least. With more than forty (41) years’ experience, your team at McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. knows what needs to be done to expose and legally punish the abuse and/or neglect of your loved one.