Tennessee Law Blog

Nursing homes in Tennessee are regulated by the Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH). TDOH takes an active role in investigating complaints made by nursing homes residents and the friends and families of residents. TDOH also performs annual surveys on nursing home facilities to ensure that proper care is being given to residents and to attempt to reduce the risk that residents will suffer from neglect or abusive behavior from staff members at the facility or from other residents within the facility. The surveys also deal with nursing home staffing levels, administration of the facility, nursing services, resident assessments and social services standards at the facility. The evaluation of these important elements is used to determine the overall level of care that the residents receive. By using these surveys and corrective measures following the surveys, including fines, limiting admissions, and even suspending admissions, the TDOH takes proactive steps to force nursing homes to provide the level of care that the residents need and deserve.

Recently, TDOH conducted a complaint investigation and Annual Survey at Palmyra, Tennessee based Palmyra Health Care Center. In response to the report issued following the review, TDOH suspended admissions at the facility and assessed fines against the facility. Specifically, the TDOH report found 18 deficiencies - four of which were deemed as immediate jeopardy to the residents. The immediate jeopardy issues stemmed from the facility's failure to develop and implement a plan to prevent residents from suffering abuse at the hands of other residents that suffer from mental health and psychosocial behavioral problems. Also, the report noted that there was no plan implemented to prevent such residents from harming themselves, staff or others at the facility. The suspension of admissions to the facility and the retroactive fines levied against the facility are significant measures taken on behalf of TDOH to address the problems at this facility.

If you have concerns about the treatment of a loved one in a nursing home facility feel free to call our office. If we can't help we can usually point you in the right direction.

This week the Tennessee nursing home industry pushed legislation to give them limited liability for the neglect of residents. It is amazing that the industry has the guts to ask for a special law created just to limit their liability when there has been record fines and citations of inadequate care this year. In fact, just this week the Tennessee Department of Health suspended new admissions of patients to Country Place Health Care Center in Crossville. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also put in place temporary management at the facility

It seems that Tennessee Nursing Homes could limit their exposure to lawsuits by making sure homes like Country Place provide quality care. Doesn't this make more sense than trying to have a law passed that protects you from a lawsuit. I have never handled a nursing home negligence case that I believe could not have been avoided if the home had provided adequately trained and a sufficient number of staff. Maybe nursing homes could avoid more lawsuits if they spent more time caring for their patients and less time trying to obtain special protections from the legislature.

The Tennessee Legislature is considering a bill that would cap any nursing home neglect or abuse jury award to $300,000.00. Apparently, the legislature does not believe that we as citizens are smart enough to sit on a jury and award a sum that is in proportion to any neglect suffered by a nursing home resident. Even more important is the fact that most nursing home are for profit corporations. The only way to deter a for profit corporation is to be able to hit them where it hurts, in the pocket book. If a nursing home has no real financial responsibility for its actions it will have little incentive to behave responsibly.

I believe we would all agree that we should be responsible for our actions. My children realize that if they misbehave there will be consequences. It may be loss of a toy or to be put in time out but they realize that they are responsible for their own behavior. I do not understand why a nursing home, a place that cares for our most frail and vulnerable citizens, should be place in a privileged class to have a very limited responsibility for their actions. Also, I recognize that $300,000 is a lot of money, however, do you think it is a lot of money do a company that makes hundreds of millions. Do you think that this sum would be a deterrence if a corporation knows it can profit more by taking shortcuts and cutting staff than they would ever have to pay in a lawsuit? Also, do you think the families of residents who were abused and neglected in a home should have a specific dollar amount set by the legislature for their loss or should a jury have the ability to determine what is just? These are all important concerns that will be drastically effected by this legislation.

I will state that however you fell this is an important issue. As such, whether you are for or against this limitation please call your representative and let your voice be heard. You can locate your rep at TN gov. If you would like to discuss the issue or concerns you have with my office feel free to contact me at hhpfirm.com.

As I write, your Tennessee representatives in Nashville are hearing arguments for putting limits to the amount of monetary awards clients can receive in Tennessee nursing home abuse lawsuits. Proponents are using the same rhetoric as they use elsewhere, ignoring nursing home deaths, neglect, and physical abuse in Tennessee nursing homes, that makes the abuser (the negligent nursing home) the victim.

Those wanting to limit compensation for Tennessee nursing home abuse and neglect lawsuits note that last year Tennessee nursing homes had the highest liability in the nation due to juries (of one’s peers) awarding too much money to those who were injured. They want to limit the decision of citizens and reduce the culpability of nursing homes.

Their solution to these "rampant" nursing home abuse lawsuits? Not better service and nursing home care, not a minimum limit on the amount nursing home abuse or neglect lawsuits should receive that would scare caregivers into proper employment and oversight practices--no, neither of these.

Their solution?

Put a set price on what your mother or father’s life is worth, what bedsores are worth, what sexual abuse is worth. Such price tags have only one purpose: Let the nursing homes guilty of abuse calculate how they can still turn a profit while allowing abuse and neglect and the subsequent occasional losses in Tennessee court.

This legislation, introduced yesterday by state Senator Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville) and Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah), aims to place nursing home abuse lawsuits under the same restrictions as Tennessee’s medical malpractice and workers comp lawsuits, thereby limiting plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees and awards for “non-economic losses” and putative damages.

The effect of such limits is to discourage Tennessee personal injury attorneys from taking nursing home abuse/neglect cases. Reducing the amounts the injured or their survivors may recover has the direct effect of reducing the quality of the plaintiff’s lawyers representing nursing home cases.

Expert testimony and case preparations are expensive, and many dedicated nursing home abuse attorneys such as myself pay these costs out-of-pocket. While nursing homes can afford high-priced defense lawyers’ fees, most of my injured clients cannot. Instead, I earn a small portion of what my clients are awarded for their or their loved one’s injuries and other damages. I then reinvest this money to be able to afford to take on the next series Tennessee nursing home abuse cases.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, where state law limits the recoveries in nursing home lawsuits, a nightshift nurse has been charged this week with raping a partially paralyzed nursing home resident and 13 other patients (though he claims to have abused nearly 100 men and women since the 1980s). These 14 accounts are those that can be verified through a review of the nursing home medical records, suggesting that evidence for this abuse existed and the nursing home is likely at fault.

Should Tennessee nursing home residents be limited like these Ohio abused nursing home residents in the recovery of their “non-economic losses”? I don’t believe that’s a question I have to answer, though it’s a question Tennessee lawmakers are hoping you won’t ask. Whever you stand let your legislature know. You can contact them at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/.

If you suspect a loved one to be a victim of a nursing home abuse or neglect in a Nashville nursing home or any facilitated care facility in Tennessee, contact me, Jim Higgins, attorney-at-law for a free consultation. HHP’s toll-free nursing home abuse hotline is 800.705.2121 or you can fill out our TN nursing home abuse/neglect form.

I recently read an article on our local paper, The Tennessean. The article was from a lawyer who represents nursing homes. He was complaining as to how costly litigation is for the nursing home and that he believes the government is being to picky on their inspection of the homes. Despite these complaints I didn't read an answer to stopping the litigation or to preventing the nursing homes from being cited for not protecting their residents from harm. I assume the nursing homes just wants to have any scrutiny to stop.

Guess what? I have a better idea to stop the lawsuits and annoying citations from he Tennessee Department of Health. Start taking care of your residents. I don't understand how this "industry" fails to see that everyone would be better off if they would worry a little less about profit and a little more about the residents. Almost every case I pursue I meet workers who tell me they didn't have enough help at the home to give residents the care they need. I honestly believe if the homes would hire just a few more qualified workers they would not have to worry about lawsuits or citations.

I would love to never file another nursing home neglect suit again in my life. If the industry wants to make that happen they should stop complaining bout people picking on them and start giving the residents who rely upon them good care.

There appears no getting away from nursing home abuse this month as nearly 300 Nashville nursing home residents look for new homes and facilitated care after Medicare and Medicaid was cut this week form McKendree Village for nursing home violations. Meanwhile, state representatives heard from Tennessee nursing home care advocates this week on the need to put more emphasis on home and community-based care, as I discussed in this previous nursing home abuse blog. Lastly, and most unfortunately, Nashville police are charging a nursing home worker with the rape of a nursing home resident.

Nursing home sexual abuse is a difficult subject to discuss. Unfortunately, this difficulty does not prevent it from being issue. No, nursing home sexual abuse is more common than we comfortably admit--and too often more common than nursing home staff and law enforcement care to publicize, investigate, or acknowledge. The case this week fits the usually mold for nursing home sexual abuse. I hope that my reporting its details here in the Tennessee Law Blog may help readers identify sexual abuse in those trusting a Tennessee nursing home to their for the care and protection.

After allegations were made in May, last Wednesday (12/05/07) police finally arrested the 44-year-old male medical worker accused of the aggravated rape of a 70-year-old female nursing home resident at Madison Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center. After a thorough investigation and conclusive DNA evidence, a warrant was finally issued for the nurses assistant’s arrest. Though it is unusual that the health care worker did not have a criminal history, his choice of victim for sexual abuse is common for nursing home abuse cases: The nursing home victim had dementia.

Dementia patients have a higher frequency of nursing home sexual abuse because predators suspect their accounts will not believed. One must wonder if the victim’s dementia was the reason it took Nashville police over half a year to bring charges against the male worker. Fortunately, this was not a case of the nursing home dragging its feet; Madison Health and Rehabilitation staff began an immediate investigation and reported the allegations of sexual abuse to the police. The Tennessee Department of Health is also conducting its own investigation to assess how this rape was permitted to occur and what can be done to ensure no other rapes or other forms of sexual abuse will occur in the nursing home.

Prevent Sexual Violence in Tennessee Nursing Homes

Nursing home sexual abuse is a delicate subject. Most nursing home residents do not feel comfortable discussing issues of sexuality and abuse. Sometimes they feel intimidated by staff or a sense of powerlessness. Sometimes they feel guilty, as if they were somehow to blame for the rape or inappropriate sexual conduct.

It is important not to compound feelings of guilt or shame by avoiding discussing the subject if it concerns sexual matters. Just because your nursing home loved one has a history of fibbing or confusing fantasy with reality does not mean you should ignore their accounts of sexual abuse out-of-hand. Such allegations are serious. It does not matter how many times they have “cried wolf.” This lack of belief is exactly what nursing home sexual predators look for.

My legal staff and I work throughout the state with Tennessee victims and families of Tennessee victims of sexual and physical nursing home abuse. For a free consultation, fill out our quick nursing home attorney contact form.

For this week’s Tennessee Law blog entry, I’d hoped to define workplace discrimination under Tennessee employment law and discuss how many recent class action discrimination cases are not the result of meanness or maliciousness on the part of an employer. Instead, I’m pushing this article back to report what will hopefully prove the last Tennessee nursing home abuse story for 2007.

Nashville nursing home McKendree Village, one of Nashville’s best-known nursing home facilities, on Friday became the 21st Tennessee nursing home in 2007 to have admissions suspended due to violations.

Tennessee Department of Health officials have fined McKendree Village $15,000 and suspended resident admissions to the 40-year-old Nashville nursing home for what investigators claim were a variety of violations. From the Tennessee investigators’ report, the federal government has ended Medicare and Medicaid payments to the Nashville nursing home.

McKendree Village is a 300-bed nursing home located Hermitage, TN (East Nashville) and has a covenant relationship with the Tennessee Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

If you need the services of an experienced Nashville nursing home abuse lawyer, call Higgins, Himmelberg & Piliponis at (615) 353-0930 or fill out HHP’s quick and easy contact form to speak with either myself, Attorney Jim Higgins, or one of our Tennessee nursing home abuse lawyers. Consultation is always free.

Nursing home abuse--like most widespread, longstanding problems--unfortunately doesn’t make the news very often. It’s usually only publicized when some new Tennessee nursing home is closed because of care violations, staff abuse, or general neglect. That’s why I found it refreshing when NewsChannel 5 (Nashville) reported Friday on the general issue of Tennessee’s negligent nursing home care and not just on a single nursing home's violations.

Anchors opened the story with simple facts about Tennessee nursing home suspensions (20 state-suspended admissions in 2007, three times 2005’s number of nursing homes) and covered much of the same ground I’ve blogged about this past year, including the Tennessee Veterans Home in Murfreesboro’s multiple cited violations for preventing violence among their residents and the three nursing homes whose Medicare was cut off because of violations and closed in 2007 (Cornelia House in Nashville, Mitchell Manor in Lebanon, TN and the Ripley Healthcare Center in Ripley, TN).

Again, the general poor care of these individual Tennessee nursing homes was not the story. NewsChannel 5 instead chose to explore how it is difficult and unfair to Tennesseans that options for better care or home care are not available. Their suggested solution, and you can read more here, is to make managers and nursing home staff “worry about their jobs” by expanding options for facilitated care for our Tennessee elderly.

“Of the more than one billion dollars spent by Tennessee and the federal government on long term care, 99 percent goes to nursing homes. It's the highest rate in the country. The state rarely helps people take care of a loved one at home.”

While this may be a step in the right direction, the other way of reducing abuse does not involve making the overworked nurses and nursing home staff “worry about their jobs” or subsidizing home care. Instead of shooting the messenger, we can hold accountable those who own nursing homes who have a larger control of their conditions. Owners are the ones who cut jobs in Tennessee nursing homes and turn a hefty profit off Medicare (as I’ve blogged here). Their decisions often determine whether or not residents will have the personal attention necessary to prevent falls, bedsores, and others forms of negligent nursing home injuries.
These persons listen to a bottom line and profits. The way to cut into the profits made from inferior care is a nursing home abuse lawsuit. Such nursing home lawsuits not only help relieve the injured or their survivors of medical bills and costs, they promote better quality care across the board. Fill out HHP’s quick contact form to speak with me about any questions or concerns you may have.

The recent citations Tennessee Veterans’ Home in Murfreesboro has received for nursing home neglect have been receiving some news coverage of their own today, perhaps because it is Veterans Day, perhaps because of the two women greeting the patriotic parades today in downtown Nashville with pictures of two veterans who had fallen not during combat but, according to their survivors, from neglect in the Murfreesboro veterans’ home.

Some have commented that such a display at such a time is disrespectful. As a personal injury attorney representing the injured and survivors of many Tennessee nursing home abuse cases, I am unconvinced.

Rather, what better time to bring attention to the mistreatment of our veterans than on the day we honor them?

Tennessee Veterans’ Home in Murfreesboro is a 140-bed nursing home is owned by the State of Tennessee that has frequently been cited for nursing home violations.

Of the five most recent violations, Tennessee nursing home regulators found three were of the “immediate jeopardy” category, meaning these deficiencies put the Murfreesboro nursing home residents’ health and safety in immediate danger. Because of these violations, the veterans’ home cannot accept new patients and will be fined until these deficiencies in care are corrected.

Tennessee regulators had previously levied fines and forbidden the nursing home from admitting new patients, 3 times in the past 16 months.

In the most recent inspection, a veterans’ home resident with a history of aggressive, violent assaults on other residents was found to have razor blades on his person, carried with violent intent after striking another resident. Another resident tried choking a resident for hollering. Again, these weren't the first instances of violence or the nursing home neglect that allows for such resident-on-resident violence. A previous inspection in June had found violent attacks among patients, including one requiring hospitalization of the veterans’ home resident.

Continue reading "Veterans Home Cited for Neglect" »

As part of their ongoing reportage of the graying of America, the New York Times Business Section has released a report on an increasing and disturbing trend in nursing home care: private investment companies buying national nursing home chains, having their shell corporations with little funds run the homes on a shoestring budget, and profit off the nursing home industry. The results can be death, neglect and abuse.

The article is entitled “At Many Homes, More Profit and Less Nursing” by Charles Duhigg and is worth checking out for its information on how big business profits on nursing home care. The online article also has a great presentation on how these investment firms are able to channel profits up the corporate ladder while keeping the lowest rungs running the nursing homes bereft of funds.

The Times article also details what nursing home abuse attorneys have known for years: Getting justice for those abused in nursing homes has gotten a whole heck of a lot harder.
You can’t get blood from a stone, and the big investment firms know this. The lower rungs that provide the actual services to nursing home residents and that own the nursing homes’ assets are underfunded, despite being forced to cut costs and corners. Instead, profits are sent up the corporate ladder of ownership to the parent investment companies where it is safe from nursing home abuse fines from government agencies as well as from nursing home abuse lawsuits. So when a jury awards the victim of a negligent nursing home a monetary award, there’s no money in the shell company to pay, and in recent years these straw men companies have proved scarecrows to personal injury lawyers scaring them away from complex nursing home abuse cases.

The Higgins Firm maintains its dedication to plaintiffs who have suffered abuse, injury, or death while in a nursing home. If your loved one has suffered from nursing home abuse, let The Higgins Firm's nursing home abuse attorneys help.

Another Tennessee nursing home is in hot water. Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Susan R. Cooper has suspended admissions to yet another Tennessee nursing home. The most recent culprit of providing inadequate facilitated care is Beech Tree Manor, a 110-bed nursing home located in Jellico, Tennessee, north of Knoxville near the Kentucky border.

Last Friday, the nursing home was ordered to suspend admissions and fined $1,500 by the State of Tennessee with a recommended federal penalty of $6,175 a day be imposed until the violations are corrected. This was a result of earlier investigations that found violations in quality of care and nursing service standards.
Nursing homes are at heart businesses, and suspended admissions and levying fines are the main way the state can make sure a nursing home cleans up its act. The order to suspend admissions remains as long as conditions remain below standard. The written order must be posted at the entrance of the nursing home in plain sight as a warning and notification to those whose family members might have suffered nursing home abuse.

HHP attorneys review nursing home neglect and abuse cases throughout the State of Tennessee. If you suspect abuse in your loved one in a Tennessee nursing home, contact us.

A new month, a new Tennessee nursing home facing fined and havingadmittance suspended. The newest culprit is the 15-bed, Hartsville facility Sun Valley Retirement Home. Here, according to the Tennesseanevening edition, residents were treated to soiled linens, potentiallytainted food, improperly administered medications, and inadequatemedical attention and safety precautions.

As readers of the news, we wonder how conditions could get so bad. Assons and daughters, we want the best for our loved ones in another'scare and shudder when we read such reports. As a trial attorney, I'msick and tired (but mainly just sickened) of seeing pictures ofdecubitus ulcers (bedsores) and listening to nursing home managers andstaff pass the responsibility buck between them.

If you have a loved one under the care of another, make sure to alterthe times when you visit your loved one in the nursing home and have aconversation with staff and other residents. Click for more informationon the warning signs of nursing home abuse or click if you need to getin contact with a Nashville nursing home abuse lawyer concerning yourloved one in a negligent Tennessee nursing home

Tennessee Mornings interviewed me with regard to nursing home issues. I have posted a portion of this interview.

Cornelia House, located off Ellington Parkway near Shelby Bottoms Park here in Nashville, was ordered by The Tennessee Department of Health this weekend to no longer admit residents until it cleans up its act and provides a safe environment for those under its care. The 159-bed nursing home is also facing a $7,500 fine for recent violations brought to investigators’ attention by a complaint filed last month. An additional fine of $6,200 a day may be imposed until violations have been corrected. According to The Tennessee Department of Health, this is the fourth year in a row that Cornelia House has been sited for conditions that put their residents in immediate risk of harm.

Nursing homes are businesses. While they should provide a healthy and active environment to our elderly loved ones, the dollar is always their bottom line. Cutting costs often means cutting corners, such as providing inadequate attention to residents, using restraints instead of implementing fall plans or, as in one of the many citations issued against Cornelia House, having inadequate measures in place to prevent residents from wandering out the facilities.
Unfortuantly, it is not a surpise to hear about this sanction. Our firm has represented a number of families that have been victims of nursing home neglect. It is a pattern that must stop.

Life Care Centers of America Inc., one of the nation’s largest elder care providers based in Cleveland, TN, will be facing a class action suit filed earlier this month against 13 of its California care facilities.

Sound run-of-the-mill? Lets consider a few points of this buried Page 4 Los Angeles Times 3/17/07 story. The first concerns how many California facilities the company owns (and the answer is not for those with triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13): 13. All 13 had received multiple violations.

Now, secondly, the nature of these multiple violations (one branch received over 25 in one year). These are the minimum state requirements being violated. Think about your favorite restaurant. Then think about 25 health violations. Now, finally, think about not being able to leave your restaurant and having to eat that unfit food for years, and you get some idea the lives these residents lived. There’s no reason for a single violation, not to mention the more than 12 an inspection inspectors found every time they visited 1 of these 13 facilities.

Third, let’s clarify the idea of a nursing home company. Life Care Centers of America brings in approximatly a billion dollars every year and, according to the L.A. Times article. It has been alleged that nursing home companies increase their income by finding those who need the most care (because Medicare will pay more for them) and simultaneously reduce overhead by hiring less than the bare minimum staff.

As the attorney prosecuting this case Stephen Garcia says in the 3/17 home edition of the Los Angeles Times where I first began following this story, “It’s not an issue of the people on the floor not wanting to do their jobs. It’s that there’s not enough of them. It’s a matter of corporate greed at the corporate level, not at the caregiver level.”

So let’s clarify what is alleged in this suit. Life Care Centers of America wants to make money; the residents part of this class action suit want to punish the corporation by taking back some of that same money made off their misery. If this is accurate, more power to them.

A McMinnville jury awarded the family of a neglected nursing home resident a judgment in the amount of $4.1 million after finding the patient received negligent care at a National Healthcare Corporation nursing home. Apparently the Tennessee jury was so appalled by the treatment the also awarded the family a multimillion dollar punitive damage award. The judge, however, threw out almost all of the punitive damage award.

So how does this verdict impact the medical malpractice reform debate. Obviously, the proponents of medical malpractice verdict caps will say that this is an example of the need for a cap. However, if the treatment was so horrible that a jury felt this verdict was justified then what would a cap have accomplished. A cap would simply let the nursing home know that they can cut costs, neglect patients, increase their profits and never have any real threat of punishment. Corporations tend to place profits over people and it this is done in the nursing home industry in Tennessee then they need to be punished The only was to punish a nursing home is financially Take away the juries ability to do so and it will be much less likely that your loved ones will be treated with care. It will also make it difficult to find a lawyer to pursue a case because litigation is such an expensive process.

A woman in Indiana claims that her second stroke and the bedsores she acquired while recuperating was a result of nursing home neglect. The death of an elderly man in Chicago is suspected by the police to be a product of nursing home abuse. These are just two of the many news headlines this week highlighting the insidious problems of abuse and neglect in nursing home and elderly care facilities across the county.

Every year, over 500,000 reports of nursing home abuse and neglect are reported to the Adult Protective Services, and it is estimated that this staggering number represents only a quarter of the incidences that actually occur in caregiving facilities for elders. While much still needs to be done on personal, institutional, local, and federal levels to address this problem, the Tennessee-based organization, Senior Crimestoppers, has played a starring role in dramatically decreasing neglect, abuse, and other crimes in nursing homes in Tennessee and across the country.

Senior Crimestoppers is a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping elders in nursing homes safe from theft, neglect, and abuse, and has reported a 94% decreases in crime volume in participating homes. Senior Crimestoppers’ method is simple, proactive, and effective. Staff and residents are trained to recognize the signs of abuse and other crimes and are empowered to report suspected cases via an anonymous helpline call to the Memphis-based organization. Individuals are financially compensated for their honest reporting of harmful incidences—these have included everything from stolen dolls to sexual abuse by caregivers—and the evidence strongly suggests that it works.

Tennesseans should be proud to provide a home base for this organization that puts into practice many of the safety measures that the law, alone, can’t. If you have a loved one in need of, or living in, a nursing home, find out if it is a participant in Senior Crimestoppers. As this week’s national news headlines show, nursing home abuse and neglect are real problems and organizations like Senior Crimestoppers should be utilized to their fullest. However, if the preventative measures of thorough research, regular visits to your beloved elders, and participation in Senior Crimestoppers have not been enough to prevent the neglect or abuse of an elder you know, we can help you with our compassionate legal expertise.

Following years of litigation, the last two lawsuits stemming from the NHC nursing home fire have been settled. These two cases were the last of 32 originally filed. Since the beginning of the lawsuit a majority of the Court documents have been sealed.

Now that the suit is over, the court file should be opened to public review. Whenever a tragedy like this occurs it is important for the public to have as much knowledge as possible. The more we know about events, the better chances we have to prevent a similar tragedy.

In each nursing home neglect case my firm pursues, I learn how the incident occurred and how it could have been prevented. Often we find that the home did not have enough staff to care for the patients or that the staff were not trained properly. We always hope, however, that when we expose the cause of the neglect the home will adjust to avoid similar tragedies in the future.

Admissions have recently been suspended at a Memphis, Tennessee nursing home. Also, the Tennessee Department of Health has fined the home for violations. According to records, the home was cited for failing to provided necessary basic services, failed to administer medications or treatment in accordance with doctor’s orders and failed to protect residents from accidents, injuries or harm. A special monitor will be appointed to review the nursing home's operations.
Again we have a home that people depend upon to take care of their loved ones that appears to have failed. Nursing home neglect is too common. It is a national crisis that needs to be addressed.
I believe the first step is simply to hire enough staff to take care of the residents and to hire people that are truly there to help. In order to attract professional, qualified staff the nursing home should pay a decent wage. This will require the homes to worry less about their bottom line and more about the welfare of the people who reside in the home.