Tue, 01/02/2018 – 12:41pm | Debra Pressey

The exterior of Helia Healthcare of Champaign is shown Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018, at 1915 S. Mattis Ave., C.

CHAMPAIGN — An 89-year-old woman who was found dead outside a Champaign nursing home this weekend was a frequent wanderer inside the facility, according to the family member of a fellow patient.

The victim, identified as Annette White of Champaign, was found outside Helia Healthcare, 1915 S. Mattis Ave., C, a facility the state has fined three times in the past 11 months for violations.

Ms. White was pronounced dead at Helia at 12:11 a.m. Dec. 31, according to Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup.

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The woman allegedly stole between $5k – $50k from an elderly person at a North Aurora long-term care facility.

URBANA — A Champaign man who denied touching an elderly woman with dementia at a Champaign care facility is headed to prison for as many as 60 years following a jury finding that he molested her.

A Champaign County jury took three hours to reject Dontrell Netter’s assertions that he never crossed the threshhold of the 90-year-old woman’s room at Bickford Cottage, 1002 S. Staley Road, in July 2015.

The jury convicted Netter, 24, whose last known local address was in the 2300 block of Southmoor Drive, of aggravated criminal sexual assault, attempted aggravated criminal sexual assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated criminal sexual assault.

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Many of America’s nursing homes are unprepared for catastrophes like Hurricane Irma.

By Travis Waldron

Many of America’s roughly 15,600 nursing homes are unprepared for disasters like Hurricane Irma, which recently killed 11 elderly patients in South Florida after the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills lost power.

“This could have happened anywhere,” Lori Smetanka, the executive director of National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, told HuffPost. “It could have been any type of emergency or disaster.”

Most nursing homes comply with federal and state regulations that govern them. But some don’t: Federal regulators have cited at least 2,300 facilities for violations of emergency preparedness regulations in the past two years alone, according to a Kaiser Health News review of federal records. And weak or poorly enforced regulations have left many nursing homes with potentially deadly problems: not enough staff, lack of backup generators and automatic sprinkler systems, and shaky plans for evacuating residents and getting them to new facilities when a disaster strikes.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 1 in 4 cases of possible sexual and physical abuse against nursing home patients apparently went unreported to police, says a government audit that faults Medicare for failing to enforce a federal law requiring immediate notification.

Nursing Home Complaint Center Now Urges the Family of a Victim of Sepsis or Severe Abuse at A Nursing Home to Call About Compensation for The Potential Wrong Done to Their Loved One

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — The Nursing Home Complaint Center is calling upon the family of a victim of sepsis, septic shock, broken bones or severe physical abuse to call them anytime at 866-714-6466 if these potentially-life threatening injuries occurred at a nursing home. The group believes preventable sepsis, septic shock, unnecessary broken bones, and even vicious assaults happen to nursing-home patients and the family members of the are rarely told the truth or the facts that caused the injury in the first place. Typically, a family of a nursing home patient learns about a potentially fatal sepsis infection or a severe injury from a hospital ER physician-not the nursing home.

The Nursing Home Complaint Center is urging the family members of a nursing home patient with sepsis or severe abuse to not waste their time trying to call the state or local government agencies, because in most instances these-taxpayer funded agencies don’t care or these types of situations are not in the government agencies job description.

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Paul Swiech pswiech@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON — Two former employees of Meadows Mennonite Retirement Community near Chenoa and a third person not associated with Meadows are under investigation after the third person allegedly posted unauthorized pictures and video of six residents on social media.

Two of the six pictures were “inappropriate,” Meadows CEO Jay Biere told The Pantagraph on Wednesday. According to an Illinois Department of Public Health statement, the posts included partial nudity.

Biere said any posting on social media without residents’ permission is wrong.

“This is completely and totally unacceptable and does not represent Meadows and its values,” Biere said. “This is a criminal case and we are fully cooperating with the McLean County Sheriff’s Department during its investigation.”

Police investigating ‘inappropriate’ posts of nursing home residents

Wednesday, August 2, 2017
The United States Supreme Court has again upheld the enforceability of arbitration clauses in skilled nursing facility admissions agreements. The underlying facts of this recent decision also call into question an Illinois Supreme Court decision regarding whether such arbitration clauses also cover wrongful death actions.

In Kindred Nursing Centers v. Clark, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a wrongful-death action brought by two deceased residents’ relatives, each of whom were the power of attorney for their deceased family member, had to be arbitrated, not litigated in court. Those relatives had signed the admission agreements with the nursing home in their capacity as power of attorney, and those agreements included a clause requiring the parties to arbitrate such cases.

The power of attorney documents in question, however, did not expressly confer upon the person who held the power of attorney the right to enter into arbitration agreements. The Kentucky Supreme Court therefore held that the arbitration agreements could not be enforced, because the powers of attorney did not have authority to bind the resident to such arbitration.

U.S. Supreme Court Again Upholds Arbitration Clauses