By Debra Jasper and Spencer Hunt
Photos by Michael E. Keating
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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Serious incidents rise
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Reports of deaths, abuse, neglect, accidents, injuries and hospitalizations are up in Greater Cincinnati counties:
Total people
|
|
County |
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
System |
|
Hamilton |
390 |
259 |
377 |
738 |
3,698 |
|
Butler |
22 |
39 |
179 |
326 |
1,410 |
|
Clermont |
30 |
73 |
85 |
156 |
710 |
|
Warren |
71 |
94 |
136 |
267 |
668 |
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Other facilities have had repeated problems, too.
The state threatened in the past three years to cut off funds to 13 Ohio nursing homes run by ResCare Inc., one of the nation's biggest providers of mental retardation services.
The Mental Retardation Department suspended admissions at ResCare Karl Road in Columbus in 1998, and in 1999 through part of 2000. Inspectors found that 20 of 24 staffers lacked behavior and crisis training, people weren't given their medications, and 1,000 doses of prescription drugs were missing.
Barbara Winters, a ResCare vice president, says her company took over several troubled homes in the past three years, including the Karl Road home. She says the company has brought in new managers to track abuse and act on problems.
"We are quality driven," she says. "Not only from the management side but also the product we deliver."
At another nursing home, a Gateways to Better Living home on Javitt Court in Youngstown, health inspectors found that 28 of 32 residents had been injured a total 99 times during 1999.
One worker had received about 100 verbal and written warnings. But he wasn't fired until he was overheard telling a resident, who had been kicked or punched in the stomach, "You have already had your beating for today."
The state threatened to decertify the home, but withdrew the threat after Gateways officials fired or suspended problem workers and agreed to hire new managers to investigate problems.
Gail B. Riess, executive director at Gateways, which plans to run 15 Ohio facilities by this spring, says conditions have changed for the better.
"I have a background in rough facilities, with turning them around," says Ms. Riess, who's been there since 1999.
Problems continued in 2001, but this time, nine workers were fired or disciplined.
A health inspection last July showed that one employee was disciplined for speaking cruelly to a resident: "I don't want you," the worker told the person. "Nobody wants you. Not even your mother wants you. That's why you are here."
Another worker was fired for allegedly hitting a resident in the eye with a hairbrush. Yet another was fired after he left a disabled man in a bathtub and went home after his 10 p.m. shift change - without telling anyone the man was still in the tub.
The man fell and injured his side and back while trying to crawl back into his wheelchair. He was found lying wet on the floor, hollering. The incident wasn't reported for six days.
Ms. Riess says workers have now gotten the message that "there is zero tolerance for abuse and neglect."
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