Dan Frith

San Francisco plans to spend about $600 million to replace the Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, an effort that “bucks a tenuous trend across the country” to provide care to seniors in their homes or in assisted living facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 7, 2007. “A…

A federal jury awarded $1.75 million last month to a woman who said her sister lost her dignity in the last days of her life because of unhygienic conditions and improper care at a Charleston, West Virginia nursing home. Tammy Rectenwald, 44, was in the late stages of multiple sclerosis…

Conditions at an East Peoria, Illinois nursing home changed dramatically for elderly residents when a number of younger residents with psychiatric problems and/or criminal histories were admitted to the East Peoria Gardens Healthcare Center. The Chicago Tribune reported the new residents wandered the hallways at night, shouting and pounding the…

We have previously written about NCCNHR – the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR), formed because of public concern about substandard care in nursing homes. This tremendous advocacy organization has been busy this week testifying before the Senate Aging Committee on the need for increased staffing at all…

Four years ago, a 77 year-old female nursing home resident was sleeping in her room at the Southwood Nursing Center in Jacksonville, Florida, when she was sexually assaulted by an 83 year-old male resident. The nursing home resident offender had been arrested 58 times in his past and convicted twice…

Police arrested a Pennsylvania nursing home employee who now faces charges of reckless endangerment and nursing home neglect. The former employee, a certified nurses aide, is alleged to have covered up a 96 year-old woman’s fall at a nursing home. The CNA was supposed to be caring for the elderly…

Many people believe that Medicare will pay their bills for nursing home care, if needed. Not true! Medicare will only pay in certain limited situations (rehabilitation after surgery) and then for a very limited time period (often 100 days). Medicaid will step in and pay but only if you qualify…

If it hasn’t happened to you, it probably has happened to someone you know. A patient goes into the hospital for an emergent or elective procedure and contracts an infection that ends up being far worse than the medical problem which sent them to the hospital in the first place.…