CU-CitizenAccess.org (https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/tag/home/)
State officials have conducted hundreds of complaint-based nursing home inspections across central Illinois since 2011.
In the seven Medicare-certified nursing homes in Champaign County alone, inspectors from the Illinois Department of Public Health conducted at least 114 complaint-based inspections.
After being admitted to the nursing home Heartland of Champaign to recover from a hospital stay for chest pain last year, Gerald Warmbier’s health rapidly deteriorated. Just days after entering the nursing home in May, he became “very sleepy” and unresponsive, Illinois Department of Public Health inspection reports noted. As a result, he was sent to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, where he slowly started recovering after a little more than a week. Return to Key Findings
Inspections find peril in central Illinois nursing homes
Warmbier vs Heartland
Click to read a copy of the Warmbier vs Heartland complaint.
In one central Illinois nursing home, staff allowed a man labeled as an “elopement risk” to leave and wander 38 miles away.
In another facility, two employees were caught whispering that one of the employees was having an affair with a female resident’s husband until the resident started crying.
An elderly man with Alzheimer’s disease leaves a local nursing home without staff noticing and is found wandering into traffic on Mattis Avenue in Champaign.
A patient in an Urbana nursing home is left unattended on a bed pan for hours until the bed pan creates a deep pressure sore in its shape.
Finding a nursing home or long-term care facility can be challenging.
Read advice from advocates and nursing home administrators on what you should look for, recommended websites for comparison and questionnaires to use when looking for a nursing home.
Nursing home care is much different today than it was a decade ago.
“Assisted living, supportive living (and) home health options have certainly made a big change within the last 10 years,” said Ben Craft, social services director at Colonial Manor in Danville.
In July 2010, Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law two bills that introduced broad reforms for the state’s nursing homes.
The laws strengthened the screening process to keep residents with histories of violent crimes separate from vulnerable, elderly residents; instituted tougher quality and staffing requirements; upped fines for violations; increased the number of state inspectors by nearly 50 percent; and added new requirements for quicker reporting of fraud, neglect and abuse, among other changes.