The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

September 21, 2007

Elder abuse lawsuit filed against Greenbrier nursing home

By Christian Giggenbach

LEWISBURG — A lawsuit filed against a Greenbrier County nursing home claims the facility’s “abusive” care caused malnutrition and dehydration of an elderly, incapacitated patient who also suffered numerous falls.

The suit filed, in circuit court by a Mississippi law firm on behalf of Eloise Gates, says the 84-year-old woman stayed at the nursing home from July 21 to Sept. 2, 2005.

The lawsuit said Gates entered the nursing home with significantly diminished cognitive skills, due to dementia, and “no longer had the conscious awareness that she had been the victim of nursing home negligence.”

Named as defendants in the 40-page suit were Greenbrier Manor, administrator Catherine Hill and 20 unidentified people.

Hill declined comment on the suit. The suit claims Gates suffered from “infections, falls, subdermal hematomas, malnutrition, dehydration and overall functional decline beyond the normal aging process” at the hands of her caregivers.

Gates, who is still living, was taken out of the nursing home by loved ones after suffering her seventh fall, according to Gates’ lawyer, James B. McCugh.

“There were at least seven documented falls with the last one incurring a significant injury over her right eye,” McCugh said by phone. “She may have suffered a brain injury and the staff did not respond until she was exhibiting coma-like conditions.”

McCugh also alleges poor care led Gates to lose “12 percent of her body weight in less than three months,” behavior which he labeled “abuse.”

“We believe in not feeding her to the point of losing 20 pounds is abuse,” he said. “And failing to recognize she was suffering from a brain injury is abuse and by anyone’s definition neglect.”

McCugh blamed an understaffed facility for failing to recognize Gates’ medical conditions and said “documentation is missing about how the patient was fed.”

“Either they weren’t feeding her or they were not feeding her enough,” he said. “They would either rush her to eat her food or take her food away before she was finished or served cold food and they were not adjusting her caloric intake.”

McCugh said the facility was inherently “unsafe in how it is run,” and he also filed a consumer protection-based claim against Greenbrier Manor for “failing to deliver proper care.”

“There are counts filed in this West Virginia complaint that I have not seen in my 20 years of doing this,” McCugh said. “They exhibited reckless disregard for her safety.”

McCugh has asked for a jury trial and for the court to award Gates compensatory and punitive damages.

— E-mail: cgiggenbach@register-herald.com

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