Troubled Illinois Nursing Home Under New Management

Chicago, ILThe point has been made previously that all nursing homes are not just for the elderly. There are also nursing homes serving the disabled, and children. And thus, Illinois nursing home abuse is not limited to seniors—as was witnessed back in the fall during an investigation into the Alden nursing home of Chicago known as Alden Village North.

According to the Chicago Tribune of December 19—the same paper that launched an investigation into a 10-year pattern of violations and deaths at the Illinois nursing home this past October—Alden has, and is continuing, to make changes to address the concerns. However, will it be enough for parents who have seen their loved ones allegedly suffer at the hands of staff at the facility, or who have mourned a death?

The investigation found alleged incidents where explicit instructions for the care of patients were not followed, or undertaken poorly. There were also allegations of severe short staffing.

To that end, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday that Alden Village North is now under the guidance of a new administrator. Additional staff has been hired and existing employees are being retrained.

"We're looking at everything critically," said Bob Molitor, chief operating officer of the Alden nursing home chain, which oversees Alden Village North on North Sheridan Road in Chicago. "Are we weak in that area? If we are," Molitor said in comments to the Tribune December 19, "we want to boost that up."

The owner of the Alden nursing home chain indicated to the Tribune that he was deeply troubled by the allegations of neglect. "We care for everything that happens in all of the facilities," said Floyd Schlossberg. "No one in this world wants to see someone pass on."

In his view, the investigation and subsequent articles in the venerable Chicago paper "don't really portray us the way we really are," he said. "We're a sincere company interested in providing quality services for the frail, elderly and pediatric population."

However, in addressing the allegations of Illinois nursing home neglect, the president of Equip for Equality in Chicago noted, "this is sort of what you would do in a situation when things aren't just problematic, but problematic down to the core," observed Zena Naiditch. "It suggests [Alden] recognizes on some level that to try to turn this place around, you're not starting over, but you're getting pretty close to it."

As detailed earlier in the fall on this Web site, Alden Village North was found by the Tribune investigation to have earned state citations for Illinois nursing home neglect, or for failure to fully investigate after 13 children and young adults had died at the facility since 2000.

It should be noted that Alden was not the original owner of the facility and didn't acquire it until January of 2008. Still, the Tribune investigation determined that seven of the deaths occurred after Alden acquired the Illinois nursing home, and that 11 additional residents have died since 2008. The latter deaths did not result in citations.

At least one of those deaths has resulted in a wrongful death lawsuit, citing Illinois nursing home law.