Our client was admitted to Oakwood complaining of chest pain, which was determined to be a heart attack. She underwent angioplasty and then admitted to the ICU for follow up care.The doctor ordered a 2D ECHO, taken on January 9th at 3pm.  That test revealed a pericardial effusion, or “fluid around the heart,” which is a dangerous abnormality. The doctor’s note for that day states: “Echo Done. Will Review.”

     Despite the abnormal and critical findings on the ECHO, our client’s pericardial effusion was not addressed by the physician. Four days after the ECHO, the patient was found non-responsive in her room and Code Blue (immediate resuscitation) was initiated. She was transferred to another facility where she had her second heart attack and her overall health rapidly declined.

     Our firm filed a lawsuit against Oakwood Southshore Medical Center, the doctors involved, and the sonogram technician for their failure to catch and treat the pleural effusion clearly seen on the ECHO, which led to her untimely death.

This poses an important question:  Who will care for Detroit’s “New Elderly?”  Detroit once had about 50 nursing homes but now only has 20.  Thirteen have been lost in just the past ten years.  There has not been a new nursing home built since the 1960’s. The homes that still stand need help to stay open amid the rising costs.  Many need to make the necessary improvements and repairs to be eligible for federal Medicare dollars.

For the aging in Detroit without insurance or access to nursing facilities, their homes will be become a prison without proper equipment such as ramps and wheelchairs, or a trained staff to help care for them.  According to the report, Detroit loses out on 120 million in Medicare dollars that they could potentially charge, but do not charge because they do not have Medicare certification. Many of the facilities are just comfortable with Medicaid (state) reimbursements.  Some of the information from this post was taken from a recent article by Rochelle Riley at the Detroit Free Press. 

When she was admitted into the facility, the staff recognized that the resident had a severe cognitive impairment (Alzheimer’s), anxiety, a history of falls from the previous year, and was considered a “high fall risk.”  Despite her condition, the resident was allowed to walk independently.  As a result, on January 8, 2012, she attempted to stand up out of her chair and fell. Despite this fall, however, care plan interventions to prevent further falls were not set in place.

On January 8, the resident fell again in the dining room and an intervention was added and the nursing staff was instructed that the resident “not be left alone in dining room.” Staff could not explain why additional fall interventions were not in place after the second fall in such a short period of time.  When the ADON (Assistant Director of Nursing) was questioned about the second fall, the reply was that the resident is independent and may go where she wants without supervision.

Then on January 12, just four days later, the resident fell again; she was found alone in her room on the floor with her head bleeding. She was sent to the emergency room and required staples in the back of her head. The resident now requires permanent use of her wheelchair as she is not able to walk on her own.

If care plan safety precautions had been added and followed at the time her risk factors were identified, the falls and confinement to the wheelchair may have been prevented.

I wrote Mike Wallace a letter that was highly critical of him and the report that he had given. You can imagine my amazement when the phone rang one afternoon after 5:00. The caller identified himself as Mike Wallace. He explained that he wanted to discuss the letter and his television report. We probably spent 45 minutes on the phone talking about the issue. He thanked me for taking time to write to him and for correcting him.

As they say, “Now that’s class.”