IDPH has cited and fined Bria of Belleville nursing home after the staff there failed to give him the medications required treat his HIV.
Nursing home residents are in nursing homes for a reason – either they are unable care for themselves, or they have chronic diseases or conditions which require ongoing care. Regardless of the reason, it is the job of the nursing staff to provide the care, treatment, and services necessary to keep them as healthy and comfortable as possible and to live out their lives with dignity.
The resident at issue was admitted to the nursing home for a short-term admission before he was to be readmitted to the hospital for chemotherapy related to his HIV. One of the medications that he was given was Dolutegravir, an HIV medication which is intended to decrease the levels of HIV in the blood and increase the number of white blood cells necessary to fight infection. This medication was to be given once daily.
The resident arrived at the nursing home with the medication, but the medication was never entered into the Medication Administration record, and as a result, he did not receive his HIV medication over the 10-day period in which he was at the nursing home before returning to the hospital.
The oncology nurse interviewed by the state surveyor stated that missing the doses Dolutegravir caused the resident’s HIV to progress and that there was new evidence of swelling of the brain which was not present before.
Nursing homes are businesses, and well-run businesses have systems in place to make sure that the basic services get provided in a routine manner. In nursing homes, one of those routine services is giving medication as ordered by a doctor. When the order is given, then the order is supposed to be entered into the Medication Administration Record (MAR) which tells the nurses on duty what, when, and how to give the medication and keeps track of whether the medication was in fact given as ordered. These are crucial steps for preventing nursing home medication errors.
However, the first step in that process is to make sure that the medications ordered were in fact properly entered into the MAR. Here the Dolutegravir was never entered into the MAR and was therefore never given. In well-run nursing homes, there is usually a process by which the entry of medication and other orders are double checked when a resident is admitted to the nursing home. The citation issued to the nursing was unclear as to whether there was simply no such process at this nursing home or whether the process was in place but failed. Either way, the resident did not get the medications he needed.
Even though this resident had a condition for which his prognosis was not good, he was still entitled to get good care at this nursing home – the same as every other resident. This is a gentleman who was medically frail, and his condition was made that much worse due to the failures in care at this nursing home.
One of our core beliefs is that nursing homes are built to fail due to the business model they follow and that unnecessary accidental injuries and wrongful deaths of nursing home residents are the inevitable result. Order our FREE report, Built to Fail, to learn more about why. Our experienced Chicago nursing home lawyers are ready to help you understand what happened, why, and what your rights are. Contact us to get the help you need.
Other blog posts of interest:
Failure to give anticoagulant medication at H&J Vonderlieth Living Center
Medication error leads to hospital admission at Arista Healthcare
Failure to give anti-seizure medication at Lexington of Orland Park
Multiple medication patches lead to seizures at Seminary Manor in Galesburg
Click here to file a complaint about a nursing home with the Illinois Department of Public Health.
