Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer California Blog

Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, a new California state law will allow California counties to offer a confidential internet system for reporting elder abuse in long-term care facilities.

Currently, those who work in financial institutions, law enforcement and in healthcare, including nursing home staff, are required by law to report suspicions of elder abuse in a “timely manner.” In many counties there can be a long wait before a call is answered due to staff cuts and a high volume of callers. More

The family of 29-year-old Violet Townsend was shocked and appalled to learn that she was being sexually abused at her long term care nursing facility.

After noticing blood on the seat of Violet’s wheelchair, her parents rushed her to a nearby hospital. Hospital staff confirmed that her injuries were consistent with a sexual assault. Violet also had been infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

A 2006 car accident left Violet with a severe brain injury, leaving her dependent on life support and incapable of any physical movement or of speech. Obviously Townsend did not consent to sex. More

In an illegal, but growing, new trend, nursing home residents are returning from emergency hospital stays only to find that they are denied re-admittance into their long-term care nursing home facility.

Left homeless, many are then forced to seek attorney representation and wait in the hospital until a new placement can be found. This often has devastating effects on the elderly person’s physical and mental health.

Residents dependent on Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), are particularly vulnerable to eviction. Medicaid (or Medi-Cal) pay nursing homes as little as half the amount of money that a long-term care facility gets from private insurance or Medicare or from residents who pay out-of-pocket. Those long-term care facilities that put profits over people, look for reasons to evict lower paying residents. More

It’s difficult to say that one type of elder abuse is more abhorrent than another. Yet when elder abuse takes the form of sexual abuse, it somehow seems worse than almost any other form of abuse perpetuated against an elderly person or a dependent adult.

Elder abuse attorney Stephen M. Garcia represented a woman over 100 years old who was repetitively raped by the manager of a long-term care facility in Riverside, Calif.

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