In September of 2011, the Wilson Care nursing home on North Hazel Street in Chicago was given a nursing home inspection report with two relatively minor violations. A year later, the annual inspection included six violations. Still, most of the violations were fairly minor. This year, the Wilson Care nursing home received 25 violations. Several of the violations indicate an immediate, widespread, jeopardy to the residents who live in the facility.
The immediate jeopardy was the result of a series of assaults committed against residents by other residents. Assaults were committed with fists, open hands, and implements like ashtrays. Residents were observed raving and shouting in their rooms for extended periods of time while staff members took no action.
The assaults and attacks are not limited to one or even a handful of residents. The violence is widespread. Families of residents in the Wilson Care nursing home should be very concerned.
Nursing home violence and resident on resident assault is, sadly, a growing trend in nursing home life. Facilities catering to the mentally ill have slowly been eliminated as a result of funding reductions. Nursing homes have become the recipients of many of the mentally disabled citizens.
Often the staff members of nursing homes have never been properly trained in care for the mentally ill. Unlike what are typically considered nursing home residents, these residents are much younger, stronger, and more confrontational.
Nursing homes have an obligation to protect the residents in their care. If they are unable to manage mentally ill citizens, they are not obligated to take them. Nursing homes enjoy the funding that full facilities provide, however, and so they rarely refuse to take a resident, even if they have no way to control or treat him or her.
If you have a loved one who has been the victim of assault of other violence in an Illinois nursing home, contact the Law Offices of Barry G. Doyle for a free and confidential evaluation of your case.