The Prairie House is a group home in Sauk Village, Illinois. One of the residents of Prairie House is a diabetic and requires diabetic medications. Typically, diabetes is treated through the ingestion of a pill or by an injection of insulin. In the state of Illinois, group homes cannot give insulin injections to residents.
Staff at Prairie House failed to ensure that prescribed medications were given to the resident and neglected to provide the resident’s physician with laboratory tests that would have illustrated their error. These medication errors put the 46-year old resident with severe mental retardation at high risk.
For reasons unknown, the resident in question was unable to swallow his diabetes pills. The physician, upon hearing this development, recommended that insulin injections be given. This left Prairie House administration with two rational choices. They could either make certain that the resident took his medications or transfer him to a facility that could provide him with the insulin injections that they could not. They did neither. Instead, they took no action, violating nursing home regulations and committing multiple medication errors.
There’s no doubt that administration knew what was happening. The resident’s physician became increasingly upset in his reports, stating “If he cannot take any pills for diabetes he has to go on insulin. If you cannot give him the insulin he needs to be transferred to a facility where insulin can be given.”
The physician also tried to separate him or herself from the impending disaster stating “he cannot come back to see me as I will not be able to help him in any way.”
Nursing home inspectors made little headway trying to investigate the case. A licensed practical nurse employed at the facility went to great lengths to avoid an interview with the nursing home inspector. At one point, she claimed she forgot her reports at another facility. She made appointments and then canceled them or failed to show up. At one point she said the information was in the trunk of a car.
If you have a loved one who has not been given his or her prescribed medication in an Illinois nursing home, or who has been the victim of some other kind of medication error, contact our Chicago nursing home lawyers for a free and confidential evaluation of your case. We have the experience to investigate medication errors regardless of the efforts of nursing homes to avoid taking responsibility.
Other blog posts of interest: