Abuse and Neglect of Elderly Rampant In Nursing Home Industry

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"We were not losing money at the facility level," she explains, "but raising the census was difficult as not many people in the community wanted to place their relatives there due to the facility's negative reputation."

Throughout the 6 months, she also upset her superiors when she continued to bring up problems such as why they were not properly treating the mold in the building and why they were not fixing the faulty plumbing, until she ended up fired.

Since 2003, Ms O'Bradovich has kept her administrator's license active but says she has not been able to secure another position as an administrator. "My career has virtually been ruined by my association with Beverly," she says.

The problem of understaffing at Beverly facilities is legend. A lawsuit recently filed by Attorney Phillip Thomas in a federal court in Mississippi, alleges that understaffing "in Beverly facilities causes the facilities to be dirty, constantly smell of urine and feces, serve as breeding grounds for lice and other problems caused by unsanitary conditions, and to generally deprive residents of a dignified existence."

The class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of former residents of the nursing home, alleges that Beverly executives maximized profits by failing to provide enough staff for proper care for residents who stayed in the Regional Nursing Center of Bryant in Saline County from December 16, 1998, to June 30, 2004.

The lawsuit alleges that many residents of Beverly facilities require assistance in eating meals due to loss of the use of their hands and understaffing results in there being insufficient caregivers to assist residents in eating causing residents to go hungry and lose weight from starvation.

The complaint alleges that one resident lost 60 to 70 pound in a 6 month period because the staff did not feed her and says the failure to feed the resident was due to understaffing of the facility.

Mr Thomas has come across all kinds of tricks used by Beverly to hide the understaffing of its facilities from government inspectors. For instance, he found that they keep two sets of work schedules; one real and the one that inspectors see which is fake.

The fake schedule, he explains, includes the names of former employees who the facility knows will not be working. But for inspectors looking at the schedule, it appears that the facility is fully staffed. The real schedule shows the facility is not adequately staffed.

According to Mr Thomas, to make the residents easier to manage for understaffed nurses and nurse's aides, facilities use drugs to sedate residents to make them sleep more.

"Caregivers in understaffed nursing homes need as many residents as possible to be asleep," he explains, "because there is not sufficient staff to adequately care for all the residents when they are awake."

"The downside for residents," he says, "is that it damages their health because they are less likely to get out of bed, ambulate and otherwise move around, which is vital to staying healthy."

In recent years, Beverly has constantly been under the scrutiny of state and federal investigators for ripping off Medicare and Medicaid. In the most recent case, on April 19, 2006, the LA Times reported that "Beverly Enterprises Inc. has agreed to pay $20 million to settle allegations that it defrauded federal and California healthcare programs," the Justice Department announced.

This time around Beverly will pay $14.5 million to federal agencies and $5.5 million to California, according to the Times.

Back in 2002, the company settled charges of elderly abuse brought by the California attorney general's office and paid more than $2 million in penalties and fines and pleaded no contest to felony elder abuse charge involving the death of two patients.

And two years earlier in 2000, Beverly settled a case with the US Department of Justice by paying a $175 million settlement and $5 million fine to resolve civil and criminal charges for defrauding Medicare.

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