Two Shocking Cases of Elder Abuse in Northern California

Two serious cases of elder abuse made headlines in the San Francisco Bay Area this past week. One involved the deliberate smothering of a patient by a caregiver in a South San Francisco nursing home, and the other involved financial elder abuse by a caregiver who stole money from patients. It is unfortunate that the very people who are charged with the care of elders are the same people who are abusing them. Elders are extremely vulnerable, and these incidences of abuse are not isolated occurrences. According to the Los Angeles Examiner, one out of 20 elders in California will be a victim of neglect or physical, financial, or psychological abuse this year.

Nursing Home Assistant Intentionally Smothers Patient

On March 22, Maximo Hong Fajardo Jr., a 37 year old certified nursing home assistant, intentionally smothered 87 year-old Barbara McIver with a pillow, in full view of other patients and staff. Ms. McIver was a patient at the Convalescent Center Mission Street in Daly City, south of San Francisco. Fajardo fled the care facility, carjacking a car and crashing it in his attempt to flee. He is currently held on $10 million bail.

Nursing Home Administrator Accused of Financial Elder Abuse

Across the San Francisco Bay in Berkeley, California, Concepcion "Connie" Pinco Giron, former assistant administrator of the Elmwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, is accused of telling her supervisors that a patient at the home, Carnell Williams, was being transferred to another care facility. In fact, Giron moved Williams into her own home, and proceeded to cash Williams’ pension and social security checks. Giron is also accused of opening bank accounts at Citibank for five other patients and transferring money from those accounts into her own account. She wrote checks to herself from the patients’ accounts and used their ATM cards.

Giron has been charged with kidnapping to commit another crime, false imprisonment, elder abuse, and six counts of theft from elder or dependent adults by a caretaker. She is currently being held in lieu of $365,000 bail.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you have a question or comment, feel free to respond to this posting, but keep in mind your response will not be confidential. If you or a loved one has been the victim of abuse, negligence, or neglect by a nursing home, contact an attorney to find out your legal rights and options. You can also contact me to discuss your matter confidentially.

AB 392 Restores Partial Funding to Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program

According to the California Chronicle, California Assembly Bill (AB) 392 was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on August 6, 2009 and took effect immediately. AB 392 restores a portion--$1.6 million--of the $3.8 million to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program that was cut by the Governor in 2008.

Role of Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program
California's Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, which operates under the California Department of Aging, is responsible for investigating and resolving complaints that are made by or on behalf of residents of long-term care facilities. Long-term care facilities include nursing homes, residential care facilities for the elderly, and assisted living facilities. Additionally, the Ombudsman Program advocates for resident rights in the long-term care system and its laws and policies.

With the population of adults over the age of 60 likely to rise dramatically to 6.5 million by 2010 and up to 9 million in 2020, the Ombudsman Program plays a critical role in protecting the safety of nursing home residents. Local Ombudsman programs make unannounced, monitored visits to long-term care facilities and respond to reports of allegations of nursing home abuse and neglect. Without Ombudsman programs, these long-term care facilities would only be reviewed only once each year by governmental inspectors.

AB 392
Back in May 2009, AB 392 was under consideration by the California State Legislature. The bill was proposed by Assembly Members Mike Feuer and Dave Jones after the Governor vetoed $3.9 million in funding for local Ombudsman programs, which was approximately half of the Ombudsman Programs' funding. The cuts led to staff lay offs and a reduction of services, such as monitoring facilities and responding to complaints.

The funding for AB 392 will come from penalties that long-term care facilities have paid from failing to comply with federal laws that protect long-term care facility residents. The new funding will be available for use by Ombudsman programs for the rest of the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

Types of Nursing Home Abuse or Neglect
Abuse of the elderly can range in conduct from verbal abuse to violent, physical abuse. Elder abuse can take a variety of different forms, such as:

• Physical abuse, including hitting, inappropriate use of restraints, and inappropriate use of drugs on the elderly individual;
• Neglect or abandonment is one of the most common forms of elder abuse, where caregivers fail to provide proper care and supervision of elderly individuals;
• Verbal abuse, including yelling, threats, humiliation, or habitual blaming;
• Sexual abuse, including sexual contact with the elderly person without his or her consent; and
• Financial abuse, including misusing the elderly individual's checks, credit cards, or bank accounts.

Nursing home abuse or neglect is a very serious matter that necessitates immediate action and attention by family members and friends of the elderly individual. If you suspect that you or a loved one has been the victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, contact The Law Offices of James R. Gillen to schedule a confidential consultation.

Baby Boomers to Cause Explosion in Senior Services – Is Government Prepared?

The Civil Grand Jury for the County of Los Angeles recently completed its final report for 2008-09. The nearly 500-page report revealed the results of a year’s worth of investigations focused primarily on children and the elderly. Over 100 pages of the report revealed an approaching “senior tsunami,” referring to the tidal wave of people approaching their senior years, and the ability of elder abuse prevention programs and services to meet the needs.

Adult Protective Services (APS) in Los Angeles County receives around 2,000 new referrals each month. The eye-opening grand jury report found that APS suffers from a lack of coordination and oversight among the many agencies and programs under its authority. According to the Grand Jury, APS does not even know if its efforts are helping seniors, due to a combination of weak oversight of county agencies and lack of a good system to track data and analyze staff performance and program outcomes.

It may also be astonishing to learn that there are no specific legal requirements for APS social worker training. While APS does indeed have a training curriculum for its social workers, it has no way of knowing how many agencies are actually conducting the training or how many social workers have in fact completed the training that is available.

Another distressing finding is the lack of resources focused on prevention of abuse. Only a couple of county medical facilities currently have a preventive program in place for the population of seniors most at-risk. Most APS services in fact go toward cases where abuse has already occurred.

Finally, the report found that the county does not have any plan in place to seek additional funding or expand its services to meet the growing elder population, which is expected to more than double from 1 million seniors in 2000 to 2.2 million by 2030.

The senior population is growing at a time when state budgets are shrinking, placing an ever-increasing demand public funds. Proper management and oversight of nursing homes and other facilities will continue to pose a challenge to cash-strapped agencies, increasing the likelihood that abuse or neglect may occur and go unnoticed. If you suspect that you or a loved one has been the victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, contact The Law Offices of James R. Gillen to schedule a confidential consultation and for immediate assistance.

New Law to Help Elders against Theft and Abuse in Nursing Homes

Theft in nursing homes is more common than one might think. In the past year, the California Department of Public Health received over 250 reports of theft or loss of resident property. Unfortunately, many other items, most notably heirloom jewelry, cash, checkbooks, and other valuables are lost or stolen, and these thefts rarely get reported to the authorities. Neither the state nor any counties keep statistics on stolen items in nursing homes.

Additionally, because of the age and poor health of many nursing home residents, they are unaware that their valuables are missing until a relative visits and notices. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease do not even notice that rings are missing from their hands. Adding to the problem is that as many as 60 percent of nursing home residents have no family or friends to visit them to make sure their belongings are not being stolen. Also, nursing homes prefer to address reports of theft internally without reporting them to the authorities because if it leaks that their staff is stealing from residents, their business could suffer. These thefts can also affect private caretakers; it is even legal for felons to get jobs taking care of elders.

However, on January 1, 2009, a new California law will take effect with the hopes that it will encourage people to report such thefts. The state law will require local ombudsmen and police to report cases of known or suspected theft and abuse immediately to the District Attorney’s office. However, the law does not require nursing homes themselves to report the thefts.

Whether this law will be effective is unclear. As discussed in my previous blog entry, the state’s ombudsman program has been cut drastically in the 2008-2009 California budget. This may mean that the ombudsman offices will not have the resources or staff they need to carefully address complaints resulting from the new reporting law.

Elders’ families can do several things to try to prevent their valuables from being stolen:

• Store valuables for elders at your home or in your safe deposit box
• Visit often and watch your relatives’ possessions closely
• Limit how much cash the elder has at any time
• If you notice your relative is missing something, report it to the nursing home immediately; if the property is not found within 24 hours, report it to the police.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you have a comment or question, please feel free to reply to this posting, or send me an e-mail. If you suspect that a loved one has been the victim of nursing home abuse or theft, contact me to schedule a confidential consultation and for immediate assistance.