Mentally Ill and Felons Put Elderly Nursing Home Residents at Risk
The Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article that discusses how elderly nursing home residents are often put at risk by other residents who are mentally ill or convicted felons. Robert Kreisman, the author of this article, is specifically gearing this article to residents of Illinois, but it certainly contains valuable information for everyone.
Nursing homes often assure people that the psychiatric patients and patients with criminal backgrounds are kept separated from the elderly and "infirm", but...
this does not always prevent the nursing home residents from coming to harm. There have been reports of elderly residents being attacked, injured, or raped by some of the mentally ill residents or those who are convicted felons.
Kreisman also says that the methods used to "identify residents with a criminal history tend to be faulty." Background checks are often performed after the resident has been admitted. These checks seldom identify all kinds of crime and often make the felon look less dangerous than they actually are.
A perfect example of this dilemma is Maplewood Care, where in one instance a 78 year-old was allegedly punched in the face by another resident after that same resident allegedly struck and bruised a 75 year-old patient. Obviously there had not been appropriate monitoring and assessment after the first incident to prevent the recurrence of this nursing home abuse. Among Maplewood Care's roughly 200 residents there are 15 convicted felons, and over 40% of the population has a diagnosis of mental illness.
These new reports are extremely disturbing for those of us who are making decisions about placement of our loved ones in Illinois nursing homes. Nursing homes can be a necessary step for elderly residents who are no longer able to provide for themselves. But placing elderly people with medical needs in an environment where they are more at risk for being harmed is not the answer.
