Mrs. Ruta stayed with her daughter for several hours, trying to clean her up, and no one from the home assisted her. She told the Ivy Ridge staff that her daughter was ill, but none of the staff responded or even called for medical assistance, acording to the suit. They didn't even provide hot water for a cup of tea, she said.
After several hours, the mother drove her daughter to a nearby hospital, where she was diagnosed with viral gastroenteritis, a fecal impaction and dehydration.
Common Pleas Court upheld a jury verdict that Ivy Ridge was guilty of neglect. The young woman was hospitalized for three days, and then her mother took her home.
Personal-care homes are assisted-living facilities where residents are helped with bathing and dressing, and the taking of medications, but don't need the kind of round-the-clock, skilled care provided in nursing homes.
State regulators notified Lavin in October 2006 that they intended to close Ivy Ridge because she had failed to address repeated violations.
In August and October 2006, for example, Ivy Ridge was cited for not having enough staff to provide at least one hour of personal care per day to its mobile residents.
Some residents did not have adequate mattresses to sleep on, or lacked blinds in their rooms.
Staff were not trained in first aid or CPR, and the home did not have a system in place to identify and document medication errors, the state said.
Karen Kroh, the state's chief regulator of personal-care homes, said in an e-mail yesterday that Ivy Ridge is no longer operating as a personal-care home, but as of last month two personal-care residents still lived there, as did two or three "independent occupants."
Meehan said that residents of many personal-care homes throughout Pennsylvania are "uniquely vulnerable" because of their mental and physical disabilities and because they are dependent on others to care for them.
He pointed out that personal-care homes are not as tightly regulated as nursing homes by the state Department of Public Welfare.
According to Meehan, there were 1,500 personal-care homes in the state last year and only 37 state inspectors. He said that 1,200 homes were at one time or another operating without a license.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Welfare said yesterday that the department has since hired five more inspectors and that all of the state's personal-care homes are operating with either a license or a conditional one.
About 50,000 Pennsylvanians live in personal-care homes. *
