Imposing Federal Criminal Liability on Nursing Homes: A Way of Deterring Inadequate Health Care and Improving the Quality of Care Delivered
![handle is hein.journals/stlulj43 and id is 663 raw text is: IMPOSING FEDERAL CRIMINAL LIABILITY ON NURSING
HOMES: A WAY OF DETERRING INADEQUATE HEALTH CARE
AND IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF CARE DELIVERED?'
Rhoda Johnson placed her mother in a nursing home, believing that her
mother would receive the medical attention and support that she needed.' In-
stead, Johnson found her mother in bed one day complaining that her hip hurt.2
Recalling what she saw after lifting her mother out of bed, Johnson said, She
had this bedsore on her hip that was so deep that I could see the hip socket and
leg bone moving inside the hole. I never looked under the covers. I didn't
think that I had to.3
I. INTRODUCTION
Nursing homes play a vital role in the health care system of the United
States.4 In addition to other services, they provide skilled nursing care and
support to individuals who are not well enough to live at home, but not sick
enough to require hospitalization.5 Residents pay a fee to live in a facility that,
in turn, provides them with food, shelter, medical care, and assistance with
daily living.6 Most nursing homes are for-profit, with a significant number of
This Comment, by Angela Snellenberger Quinn, was selected as the best student work to ap-
pear in Volume 43 of the SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL.
1. Mark Thompson, Fatal Neglect In Possibly Thousands of Cases, Nursing Home
Residents are Dying From a Lack of Food and Water and the Most Basic Level of Hygiene,
TIME, Oct. 27, 1997 (visited September 20, 1998) <http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/
magazine/1997/dom1971027/nation.fatal-neglect.html>. See also Gina Holland, Grand Jury May
Make Decision in Nursing Home Ant Bite Death, COM. APPEAL, September 27, 1998, at B7
(noting that a 66-year-old nursing home resident died after being bitten hundreds of times by fire
ants that stung her as she lay in her bed.); Editorial, INDIANAPOLIS STAR, July 15, 1998, at A15
(noting that a 69-year-old woman suffering from schizophrenia froze to death in the snow after
she walked away from the nursing home where she was staying.).
2. Thompson, supra note 1.
3. Id.
4. See Special Committee on Aging, California Nursing Homes: Care Problems Persist De-
spite Federal and State Oversight 1 (Letter Report, July 27, 1998, GAO/HEHS-98-202)
[hereinafter GAO Report]. It is worth noting that nursing homes are often referred to as long-
term care facilities.
5. Id.
6. See Theresamarie Mantese & Gerard Mantese, Nursing Homes and the Care of the Eld-
erly, 51 J. Mo. B. 155, 156 (May/June 1995).
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