According to Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Information, a Chicago nursing home is facing a lawsuit alleging negligent and abusive long-term care. Three siblings filed a lawsuit against Ridgeview Nursing Home after their mother died but the family was not notified until four months after her passing.
According to the complaint, the woman was admitted in the nursing home due to a variety of disabilities and required close care of staff members at the facility with long-term care such as eating, bathing and walking. The woman’s daughter visited the woman at the end of April. Two days later the nursing home took the woman to a nearby hospital for treatment. The hospital notified the family of the woman’s move to the hospital, where the daughter visited her mother. Within 24 hours of that visit, the woman was transferred back to the facility from the St. Francis Hospital in Evanston.
The woman’s family lived out of the area and was unable to frequently visit. According to one of the daughters, the facility was called as the daughter wanted to wish her mother happy birthday. However, a staff member answering the telephone informed her that no one by that name resides in the facility. The family traveled to Chicago and upon their arrival discovered their mother had died four months earlier. Ridgeview Nursing Home failed to notify the family of the patient’s passing and the remains were sitting at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The family alleges the nursing home went ahead and authorized the removal and burial of the woman’s remains without the family’s consent.