Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of Long Beach Abuse and Neglect Lawyers

Nursing homes who keep staff levels low and do not train their staff appropriately think that they are inflating profits while cutting back on resident care. In reality, what they are doing is opening themselves up to a lawsuit. The attorneys at the Nursing Home Law Center can help you take the fight to the nursing home where your loved one was injured by filing a lawsuit on your behalf that could entitle you to financial compensation.

Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of Long Beach

This nursing home is a 199 bed for-profit facility that offers short and long-stay care to residents of the Long Beach area. The Medicare/Medicaid approved facility is located at:

3232 E Artesia Blvd
Long Beach, CA 90805
(562) 422-9219
Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of Long Beach

Nursing homes are inspected annually at the behest of the federal government. When the inspection reveals any deficiencies that cause actual harm to a resident, the nursing home is in position to receive a fine. The levy is proportionate to the severity of the violation. In addition, nursing homes must comply with the California State Code, which has stringent requirements for the quality of care and safety provisions that a nursing home must take. Nursing homes that fail to follow these laws can expect to receive multiple fines each year from the State of California.

Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center of Long Beach is one of a chain of large nursing homes. Many facilities in this chain have received very low ratings on their federal inspections and very high numbers of fines from the State of California. This nursing home is no different from the other facilities in the chain. It has received one federal fine and many state fines in the past three years. This nursing home has had 16 complaint citations issued in the past three years.

The federal fine was for $21,500 assessed in March 2018. The fine was not a part of the nursing home’s annual inspection, but rather resulted from an investigation that started with a complaint. Here, a resident experienced several falls that resulted in significant injuries. Nursing homes have a legal obligation to assess whether a resident is a fall risk and then implement safeguards accordingly. When the resident has fallen, there are obligations to perform an assessment and then to adjust the plan accordingly. Here, the nursing home failed to do so and a subsequent fall led to a severe head injury and a hospitalization.

In 2018, there were numerous state fines, including one where a resident was found tied down to their bed. A family member reported that they observed their loved one tied down by a sheet and filed a complaint. When interviewed, one CNA admitted that they observed the resident tied down during their shift. While nursing homes may use restraints in certain limited circumstances, they must be reasonable and documented. Tying a resident to a bed with a sheet does not meet these criteria.

Windsor Gardens also received a $20,000 fine that same year for failing to provide adequate wound care for a resident and for not having staff sufficiently trained to engage in this task. Staff did not follow the nursing home’s wound care procedures or the resident’s own wound care plan. As a result, the resident developed an infected pressure ulcer.

The most recent federal inspection was carried out in February 2019. While there were some improvements in the number of health citations from previous years, the nursing home still received 22 health citations, which is still an unacceptably high number. One citation involved a situation where a resident stated that they were afraid of a certain nurse because “she beats me up and shakes me like a rag doll.” This was an allegation of abuse that should have been immediately investigated, but it was not. The facility was unaware that this particular nurse was fired from a previous job and did not properly check references before hiring the nurse.

Windsor Gardens Convalescent Center also had an extremely high rate of hospitalization rate among its resident. The national average is 1.75 hospital stays for every 1,000 resident days. This facility’s rate was double the national average and put it in position to receive a monetary penalty from Medicare that would reduce its reimbursements from the program. For short-stay residents who were at the facility for rehabilitation, nearly a third of them required further hospitalization after admission to the nursing home.

Any of these health citations that have resulted in fines likely have caused harm to a resident in the process. If this is the case, then violations such as these give your family a cause for legal action that could result in financial compensation from the nursing home. The first step that you must take in order to start the process of filing a lawsuit against a nursing home for an injury is to consult with an attorney. The Nursing Home Law Center has filed numerous lawsuits across the State of California for harms to nursing home residents such as the ones listed above. Contact or call them today at (800) 926-7565 in order to schedule your free no-risk case assessment to find out whether you have a viable claim against a nursing home where your loved one was injured.

Sources

• Inspection Report - 02/12/2019