Subject: Re: Article, Huge verdict shakes up nursing home industry
In our wanderings through four very large counties on the Olympic Peninsula, we have visited at least a dozen nursing homes. There are only two homes in which I would want to spend my final time on Earth. Several of them met us at the door with an air of uncleanness that had to have been built up over long neglect. That heavy odor of bile and urine mixed with sweaty bed clothes and bodies.
One facility in Port Angeles lines the walls of the halls with inmates tied into their chairs for their daily exercise, while a staff person swamps out their rooms and changes bedding. The patients flop over in all sorts of uncomfortable positions, some crying, while others ask us if we could help them get to the front door.
Another time, in another home, we had to wait to see our client because she was still being bathed and fed her breakfast. At eleven o'clock A.M. The tired young woman helped our client to a chair and told us, "I have 12 people I must get up, bathe, change their bedding, help with their breakfast and get them settled for the day. And most of them should have two people helping them, for safety sake. But we are always short staffed."
Another place in Port Orchard, which seemed to be quite clean and well staffed, had a beeper above the front desk. I think it also had a light that flashed each time it beeped.
We had just visited a woman and found that she was too weak to hold a magnifier for reading. We had shown her the Talking Book tape player and she thought she would enjoy listening to books. But she told us that she could never work the machine by herself.
We sat in the lobby and explained this to the head nurse. "Someone will need to come in and turn the tapes over and put in the next tapes," we explained. "Do you have people on staff who can do that?"
"Oh yes," she beamed, "We can have someone check in on her and do that for her".
All the time we talked, about 35 minutes, that annoying beeper went merrily along. Finally we asked the nurse, "What is that beeper for?"
"Oh, that's signals us when a patient needs attention."
Frankly, I think our client died before anyone got around to turning over the first tape.
Curious Carl
**********
Huge verdict shakes up nursing home industry
By PAUL ELIAS (AP) -- 2 days ago
SAN FRANCISCO --- During Cindy Cool's almost daily visits to the nursing
home, she would routinely find her Alzheimer's-suffering father wearing
urine-soaked clothes.
The Blue Lake, Calif. resident said it would take upwards of 20 minutes for
the apparently short-handed staff of Eureka Healthcare and Rehabilitation to
respond and help Cool clean her father. Other patients fared worse, she
said.
"A lot of times I walked out of there crying because of the things I saw,"
Cool said an interview.
She provided key testimony before a Humboldt County jury last month slammed
the owners of her father's nursing home with a $677 million verdict, sending
shock waves through the industry and rekindling calls for tort reform.
The verdict as it stands is already thought to be the largest in the country
this year and its ramifications are still being sorted out weeks after the
jury surprised even the plaintiffs' lawyers with the size of their verdict.
Tort reformers have seized on the verdict as the latest example of
litigation abuse.
The company's stock price has plunged on fears it will have to file
bankruptcy. Cool, 58, was part of a class-action lawsuit representing 32,000
patients that blamed the nursing home staff shortage for the misery she
encountered --- echoing a common complaint across the country that
for-profit nursing homes are too concerned with the bottom line.
After Wall Street investment firms went on a nursing home buying spree
during the early years of the new century, critics charge that many
companies drastically cut payroll expenses to prop up stock prices.
"The major problem for most nursing homes in California and in the nation is
staffing," said Pat McGinnis, executive director and founder of the
California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.
Many of the 16,100 homes nationwide are owned by public companies. The home
where Cool father's lived and died in 2006 is owned by Skilled Healthcare
Group Inc., which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
On July 6, the Humboldt County jury found that Skilled Healthcare on
numerous occasions violated state regulations requiring it to keep a minimum
number of nurses on duty at its 22 homes in the state.
James Gomez, president and chief executive of the California Association of
Health Facilities, called the verdict "outlandish, excessive and extreme"
and said a "good provider of skilled nursing care" is likely bound for
bankruptcy if the verdict holds up, threatening the livelihoods of 14,000
California workers.
The lawsuit accused Orange County-based Skilled Healthcare of failing to
maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient per day at its 22 nursing homes in
California. The company is just the 10th largest, based on beds, in an
industry that struggles to keep workers.
"The verdict is a statement that facilities must follow the law and meet
minimum standards," McGinnis said.
McGinnis said the 3.2 nursing hours required by California should be an easy
standard to meet because it's nearly a full hour less than the federal
recommendation of 4.1 nursing hours per patient.
"The fact that this company couldn't maintain these minimum standards makes
you wonder why it was in the nursing home business to begin with,"
McGinnis said.
Skilled Healthcare Chairman and CEO Boyd Hendrickson said in a statement
immediately after the verdict that the company is "deeply disappointed"
in the verdict and believes its nursing homes are appropriately staffed.
"We strongly disagree with the outcome of this legal matter, and we intend
to vigorously challenge it," he said.
The company's options, however, appear to be shrinking.
On Thursday, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Bruce Watson shot down one
of the company's challenges when he denied its demand for a mistrial based
on juror misconduct.
Meanwhile, the company's ability to appeal is in question. Typically,
parties challenging a trial court decision are required to post 150 percent
of the verdict as a bond. The company doesn't have the cash or credit to
post the $1 billion-plus bond. It also likely faces bankruptcy if the jury's
verdict stands up.
Both sides are currently in settlement negotiations, and legal analysts said
there's good chance that the sizable verdict will be reduced.
That is what happened in another high-profile nursing home verdict won in
1998 by Michael Thamer, who is now lead lawyer in the Skilled Healthcare
lawsuit.
A Siskiyou County Superior Court jury awarded his client Reba Gregory
$95 million after a nursing home attendant dropped her during a bed
transfer, fracturing her hip and shoulder. Thamer convinced the jury that
two attendants should have attempted the transfer and that Gregory's
injuries were the result of staff shortages.
A judge later reduced the $95 million verdict to $3.1 million.
Copyright C 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By PAUL ELIAS (AP) -- 2 days ago
SAN FRANCISCO --- During Cindy Cool's almost daily visits to the nursing
home, she would routinely find her Alzheimer's-suffering father wearing
urine-soaked clothes.
The Blue Lake, Calif. resident said it would take upwards of 20 minutes for
the apparently short-handed staff of Eureka Healthcare and Rehabilitation to
respond and help Cool clean her father. Other patients fared worse, she
said.
"A lot of times I walked out of there crying because of the things I saw,"
Cool said an interview.
She provided key testimony before a Humboldt County jury last month slammed
the owners of her father's nursing home with a $677 million verdict, sending
shock waves through the industry and rekindling calls for tort reform.
The verdict as it stands is already thought to be the largest in the country
this year and its ramifications are still being sorted out weeks after the
jury surprised even the plaintiffs' lawyers with the size of their verdict.
Tort reformers have seized on the verdict as the latest example of
litigation abuse.
The company's stock price has plunged on fears it will have to file
bankruptcy. Cool, 58, was part of a class-action lawsuit representing 32,000
patients that blamed the nursing home staff shortage for the misery she
encountered --- echoing a common complaint across the country that
for-profit nursing homes are too concerned with the bottom line.
After Wall Street investment firms went on a nursing home buying spree
during the early years of the new century, critics charge that many
companies drastically cut payroll expenses to prop up stock prices.
"The major problem for most nursing homes in California and in the nation is
staffing," said Pat McGinnis, executive director and founder of the
California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.
Many of the 16,100 homes nationwide are owned by public companies. The home
where Cool father's lived and died in 2006 is owned by Skilled Healthcare
Group Inc., which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
On July 6, the Humboldt County jury found that Skilled Healthcare on
numerous occasions violated state regulations requiring it to keep a minimum
number of nurses on duty at its 22 homes in the state.
James Gomez, president and chief executive of the California Association of
Health Facilities, called the verdict "outlandish, excessive and extreme"
and said a "good provider of skilled nursing care" is likely bound for
bankruptcy if the verdict holds up, threatening the livelihoods of 14,000
California workers.
The lawsuit accused Orange County-based Skilled Healthcare of failing to
maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient per day at its 22 nursing homes in
California. The company is just the 10th largest, based on beds, in an
industry that struggles to keep workers.
"The verdict is a statement that facilities must follow the law and meet
minimum standards," McGinnis said.
McGinnis said the 3.2 nursing hours required by California should be an easy
standard to meet because it's nearly a full hour less than the federal
recommendation of 4.1 nursing hours per patient.
"The fact that this company couldn't maintain these minimum standards makes
you wonder why it was in the nursing home business to begin with,"
McGinnis said.
Skilled Healthcare Chairman and CEO Boyd Hendrickson said in a statement
immediately after the verdict that the company is "deeply disappointed"
in the verdict and believes its nursing homes are appropriately staffed.
"We strongly disagree with the outcome of this legal matter, and we intend
to vigorously challenge it," he said.
The company's options, however, appear to be shrinking.
On Thursday, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Bruce Watson shot down one
of the company's challenges when he denied its demand for a mistrial based
on juror misconduct.
Meanwhile, the company's ability to appeal is in question. Typically,
parties challenging a trial court decision are required to post 150 percent
of the verdict as a bond. The company doesn't have the cash or credit to
post the $1 billion-plus bond. It also likely faces bankruptcy if the jury's
verdict stands up.
Both sides are currently in settlement negotiations, and legal analysts said
there's good chance that the sizable verdict will be reduced.
That is what happened in another high-profile nursing home verdict won in
1998 by Michael Thamer, who is now lead lawyer in the Skilled Healthcare
lawsuit.
A Siskiyou County Superior Court jury awarded his client Reba Gregory
$95 million after a nursing home attendant dropped her during a bed
transfer, fracturing her hip and shoulder. Thamer convinced the jury that
two attendants should have attempted the transfer and that Gregory's
injuries were the result of staff shortages.
A judge later reduced the $95 million verdict to $3.1 million.
Copyright C 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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