Florida is taking elderly down a dark, deadly path

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Florida is taking elderly down a dark, deadly path

Maxwell TAKING NAMES May 15, 2011

Florida is stepping back into the dark ages when it comes to nursing-home abuse

and neglect.

The industry is facing fewer regulations. Staffing requirements are being

lowered. The watchdog program is being neutered. The state is even trying to

muzzle the watchdogs who dare to speak up for the elderly.

And all of this is happening while cases of horrid abuse — the likes of which

you would barely believe in a King novel — are on the rise.

In Pinellas County, a 75-year-old Episcopal priest with dementia wandered off

unsupervised and was found in a lake, his body ripped apart by alligators.

In the Panhandle, the owner of an assisted-living facility threatened disabled

residents with a stick and refused to give them food and drugs.

In South Florida, a 71-year-old man with schizophrenia died from burns he

received in a bathtub. At the same home, staff failed to stop residents beating

one another with 2-by-4s...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-scott-maxwell-nursing-homes-0515112011051\

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