Elder Law

State Calls For Fines in Angel of Death Case

By Levin & Perconti

We have been tracking the case out of the Britthaven of Chapel Hill, a nursing home embroiled in a tragic controversy of overmedication and death. As previously reported, a registered nurse at the facility was charged with second-degree murder and six counts of patient abuse.

The nurse, Angela Almore, had given several Alzheimer?s patients opiate drugs in an effort to make them more manageable and easier to handle. None of the patients were supposed to be receiving any pain medication. Eventually, the reckless medication behavior led to the death of one resident, Rachel Holliday. Ms. Holliday died from pneumonia-related asphyxiation, with ?morphine toxicity? as a factor.

As WRAL News is reporting, state officials have now cited the nursing home itself for its negligent conduct that allowed the abuses to occur. After an extensive investigation of the facility, state officials uncovered many examples of unprofessional conduct, inadequate services, and unnecessary prescriptions of drugs. The state is fining the facility $20,000 for the errors, an amount which many local officials believe to be too small considering the seriousness of the violations.

The findings of other violations at the nursing home beyond the extreme example of opiate drugging suggest that once a culture of negligent treatment is accepted at a facility, repeated abuses occur. It is for that reason that it is especially important for even small signs of substandard nursing home care to be confronted and fixed.

Basic nursing home violations are often a slippery slope leading to severe abuse and death for vulnerable elderly residents. That is why our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti support all efforts to hold inadequate facilities accountable for the abiding by state and federal nursing home laws. Please contact our attorneys if suspect any violations as a facility near you.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on August 14, 2010 (boomark / email).