From: ADAPT <cyanosis@igc.org>
Subject: 03/92 INCITEMENT: EX-NURSING HOME RESIDENT SUES THE "HOME" AND WINS
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 20:17:08 GMT

                    EX-NURSING HOME RESIDENT 
                    SUES THE "HOME" AND WINS 
                    IT WAS NO PLACE LIKE HOME

     "I've never seen a good nursing home.  There's no such 
thing." -- Elliot Hoppenfeld

     "It was 1965 when I went in the first time.  My step mother 
got sick and my father said I had to go," explained Elliot 
Hoppenfeld.  "I was treated like an animal.  The second night my 
roommate attacked me, food was bad.  The staff wasn't very good, 
they don't get paid enough.  I was there for a month." Then his 
step mother got better and he was out.  In 1969 she got sick 
again though, so back he went.  This time he got sick the food 
was so bad.  But in 1971 his step mother died, so this time the 
nursing home was to be permanent.  Younger staff made it better, 
there were many problems but he tolerated them.  People peed in 
his room, someone got in a fight and when Elliot complained he 
was sent to a hospital and then back to the nursing home.  The 
nursing home kept changing hands and finally it was sold to 
Joseph Davids, Elliot said that was when things really started to 
slide down hill, mostly due to lack of staff.  He complained 
everywhere, to the minister, to whoever would listen, but mostly 
everyone laughed.

     Finally in 1986 he went downtown to the Illinois Citizens 
for Better Care, ICBC, and Legal Aid.  He was afraid to complain, 
but eventually he did -- anonymously.  The nursing home 
administrators came to him, badgering him.  Had he complained?  
He denied it but in the end they pried it out of him.  They tried 
to kick him out, but he would not go.

     The next day he was to go to lunch with a friend.  He signed 
out and went outside to wait for her, but a worker came and told 
him he could not go because he was under psychiatric care.  This 
was news to Elliot who insisted on going with his friend, so two 
aides from the nursing home came outside and dragged him out of 
his chair as he resisted and carried him inside.  The nurse tried 
to give him a sedative shot, but gave up when he kept on 
resisting them.  Soon an ambulance came for him to take him to 
the Reed mental hospital.  They told him he had no need of his 
clothes.  The paperwork was all wrong, but somehow Reed accepted 
him.

     While in Reed, Hoppenfeld said he received "death threats 
against my life" from the nursing home, people would call and say 
"someone will poison you."  Up until then he had believed he 
would return to a nursing home, hopefully with improved 
conditions, but these threats "turned me away from the nursing 
home" he said.  The hospital kept telling him he did not belong 
there, but he would not go back to the nursing home.  In May of 
1986 the Jewish Federation helped him find his own apartment and 
the ICBC helped him find an attorney,  Steve Levin, and file a 
lawsuit against the nursing home. Last year the nursing home 
finally settled the lawsuit with Elliot.  It was the first time 
this kind of settlement was made.

     The apartment, where he still lives, "is not a good place, 
rats, noise.  But it's still better than a nursing home" Elliot 
says.  "They [the nursing homes] had rats, mice, cockroaches 
too."  With his settlement he is buying his own condo which is 
"much nicer."  "I'm going to enjoy the rest of my life."  But 
first he must fight the condo people for his right to put in a 
ramp.  "Doesn't this stuff ever end?" he asks. 

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