It was reported last week that a Texas-based nursing home operator, Cathedral Rock Corporation, agreed to settle suits involving patients who were mistreated while living as residents in one of their nursing homes. The allegations from the suits are far too familiar to cases we have seen in the last few years:
•1. Understaffing
•2. Substandard nursing care
•3. Falsification of drug records
•4. Fraudulent changes in patient charts
•5. Patients with bedsores
•6. Patients who wandered away from the facility
•7. Emphasis on profits over patients
This type of conduct is not unique to this operator. But Texas has significantly weakened the patients’ (and their families) abilities to seek judicial review of many claims with the 2003 legislative changes that have made it economically unfeasible for patients, families or law firms to hold negligent nursing home operators liable for the damages they inflict. We call on the Texas Legislature to make significant changes in these arcane laws that benefit the wrong doing nursing home facility to the detriment of its residents. Let’s put the people of Texas first when we focus on the care and treatment of our aging population.