Is Carlton at the Lake truly a best practice?

Is Carlton at the Lake truly a best practice?

.Jeff Kelly Lowenstein on 11.24.10 at 10:53 AM
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..Jeff Kelly Lowenstein

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Stumble...Last year, The Chicago Reporter wrote about the Carlton at the Lake nursing home in the Uptown neighborhood as an example of some of the best practices in nursing home care in the city. As of last week, the home had retained its stellar rating.

But Mary Roman says that her mother died a horrible death after years of unnecessary and extended physical suffering after her admission to Carlton in the middle of 2007.

More at chicagoreporter.com

Roman said her mother, Leona Lemke, had been in fine physical condition before her admission to Carlton, but that her state rapidly declined after being treated with drugs and kept in a room filled with cockroaches and feces-stained chairs.

Roman took pictures that she said were from 2007 documenting her claims and, in 2008, filed a complaint against the home with the Illinois Department of Public Health.

In 2008, Lemke wrote a letter that began, "My benifit [sic] are being wasted on drugs and the service of the nursing which I don't need," and ended, "I have a lovely family that I want to go home to[;] they are frighting for my freedom from the nursing home."

Carlton at the Lake did not receive any fines from alleged violations from January 2005 to March 2009, according to violations data from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

In October 2008, Roman received a letter from the Cook County Public Guardian saying that she could only visit her mother one hour a month. The letter cited three incidents in which Roman attempted to take her mother out a side door to a waiting taxi, called the police to remove her mother from the facility and alleged that her mother was being abused at the facility.

After her mother's death in February, Roman filed a civil lawsuit against the facility, seeking at least $50,000 in damages.

The home had been sued once between January 2005 and May 2009, according to a Reporter analysis of cases filed in the Cook County Circuit Court.

During the same period, the 92 nursing homes within the city faced an average of six lawsuits.

Rose Marie Betz, spokeswoman for the home, declined to comment about Lemke, citing laws that protect residents' privacy.

"We've always tried to render the very best care at all times," she said. "Under these circumstances, we had to follow the direction of the Office of the Public Guardian, the Court of Cook County and the direction of the attending physician."

In 2007, Lemke was declared a disabled person and placed under the guardianship of the Office of the Public Guardian. In February 2008, she wrote a letter saying that she was "a victim of guardian abuse" and asserting that she "was forced into guardianship against my will."

Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris said letters such as the one Lemke wrote are not uncommon and can trigger a process by which the person leaves the guardian's care. Harris explained that he had not heard about the feces or cockroaches in Carlton at the Lake but said his office had a positive impression of the care provided there. In addition, he said Lemke arrived at the nursing home with a severe bed sore from her care in the hospital she stayed in prior to her nursing home admission.

Roman disagreed. "They killed my mother," she said

Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-muckrakers/2010/11/is-carlton-at-the-lake-truly-a-best-practice.html#ixzz1CXBiWlJU
 
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-muckrakers/2010/11/is-carlton-at-the-lake-truly-a-best-practice.html

Editor's Note:


Carlton at the Lake Nursing home is a favored nursing home of the Office of the Public Guardian. As our investigators have learned, many wards whose estates have been placed into OBRA Special Needs Pooled Trusts are ultimately placed into Carlton at the Lake Nursing Home. One would think with so many wards in this facility, that the Public Guardian would be well aware of the quality of care being provided.

One must also consider what led up to the guardianship of Leona Lemke in the article above....it appears as though a loving family member wanted to care for her, yet, as with so many other cases in Cook County, the loving family member is removed and/or restricted from their loved one, while the estate is then spent down by the attorneys and guardians.

The guardians, lawyers, and nursing home owners are profiting off of this racket. Unfortunately, this case demonstrates exactly how tragic the consequences can be for the ward of the court. This racket appears to have cost Leona Lemke her life.

For those interested, ownership and other information for Carlton at the Lake Nursing Home can be obtained from the Illinois Department of Public Health website below:

http://www.idph.state.il.us/webapp/LTCApp/listing.jsp?facilityid=6001465