Lawmakers investigating nursing home abuse told of possible civil rights violations
John Cody Reporting
WBBM Newsradio 780
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Illinois Senators have heard about possible civil rights violations, and the need for community housing for ex-offenders and mental patients, as they begin exploring ways to improve safety of nursing home residents.
State Senators Mattie Hunter and William Delgado co-chaired the joint committee considering ways to correct problems uncovered by the Chicago Reporter and Chicago Tribune. The publications reported on patients attacked by ex-convicts and mental patients housed by the state in open beds in nursing homes.
Committee Member Jacqueline Collins says Chicago Reporter data shows that, adjusted for cash flow, nursing homes housing African-Americans provided worse care than those housing whites.
Senator Collins thinks this may amount to a civil rights violation.
The head of Gov. Pat Quinn's task force on Nursing Home Safety, Michael Gelder, also said Illinois residents have to look into their own hearts and ask themselves why there's so little funding appropriated but those with the least money toward the end of their lives.
He told senators there aren't enough regulators in the whole state to guarantee safety for nursing home residents and suggested that relatives of nursing home residents and neighbors in the community take it upon themselves to ask as informal ombudsmen to demand proper standards of care.
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