The Boston Globe recently covered some very distressing details concerning one parent company for various nursing homes around the country, Synergy Health Centers. Specifically, one patient who died at its Braemoor Health Center died as the result of nurses and aides lacking the proper training to revive a dementia patient (i.e. basic Code Blue training), and the nursing home then failed to report the death to the state health department because of the recent “bad press” surrounding Synergy Health Centers in general.
A 70-page report which investigates several patient deaths connected with the nursing home has now been released and is blistering, detailing how staff was untrained in basic life-support care, relied on defective equipment, and failed to ensure that buildings contained the basic alarms necessary to warn the staff when dementia patients wandered off the premises.
State regulators found conditions there so alarming—including issues related to caring for patients with a history of substance abuse and handling both sexual assaults and thefts—that they said the patients there were in “immediate jeopardy.” Since then, officials have blocked the facility from accepting new patients, frozen federal payments, and fined them $200,000.
Red Flags & Warning Signs
Synergy Health Centers is based in New Jersey and has been plagued with problems for sometime now. For example, one patient recently admitted to the facility had a history of drug abuse and was immediately placed on a cocktail of narcotics, including those he’d previously been addicted to.
The facility allegedly hadn’t conducted any kind of medical evaluation concerning the risks related to medications they prescribed for the patient; not only did they prescribe the medications he had a history of abusing, they more than doubled the dosage of some of them, while discontinuing the meds he’d previously received to control his substance abuse. The patient even had a hospital emergency during his time at Braemoor, when he was rushed to the hospital at one point for being in an “unresponsive state,” and still the facility failed to make any adjustments to his prescriptions.
And as if the facility couldn’t possibly be more negligent, it also allegedly evicted the patient without addressing the need for some kind of treatment plan and/or services to ensure that both his pain and history of abuse/issues were addressed in any way. The patient died of an overdose two days later.
The company recently had to submit its plans to state and federal regulators describing how it planned to correct the many problems just discovered at one of their many facilities. Not only does it face repercussions from state and federal officials, but potentially from the families who have suffered due to the negligence and now loss of their loved ones.
Nursing Home Abuse Attorneys
As our loved ones age, many families must rely upon assisted living facilities and nursing homes to properly care for them–especially those with demanding medical needs. However, sadly, nursing home abuse does occur in some of these facilities, as well as negligence of basic responsibilities when it comes to caring for the patients.
At Dana and Dana, our attorneys are experienced in representing families of nursing home abuse victims. We have the experience and knowledge to assist you in determining what to do if your loved one isn’t receiving proper care and applying all of the protections of nursing home abuse law. Contact us today for a free consultation.
