Multiple Examples of Mismanagement, Abuse and Neglect at Bruce Rauner Long-Term Care Homes

The Lee Newspapers this weekend broke the news about another health care system owned by Bruce Rauner’s GTCR rife with mismanagement, abuse and neglect.
Rauner’s American Habilitation Services (AHS), a for-profit corporation formed in 1996 responsible for the housing and care for persons with disabilities, was subject to lawsuits and regulatory action as a result of conditions found to be “deplorable.”
Among the examples of neglect and abuse at the Rauner homes cited by Lee Springfield bureau chief’s Kurt Erickson:
1. Death of an 11-year old.
At the Thomas Care Center in Houston, 11-year-old Xavier Alexander Hegwood died after an older resident “viciously attacked’ him in a playroom. The Texas attorney general Greg Abbott, now a Republican candidate for governor, later filed a lawsuit to seize control of the facility from AHS.
2. “Individual 48”
Also in 2005 in Texas, a woman identified only as “Individual 48” died after she was found unconscious and on the floor. She later died. Because of improper transfers, she had not been properly diagnosed with congestive heart failure, Abbott alleged.
3. Arizona Drowning
In 2004, the family of a developmentally disabled woman who drowned at an AHS facility was awarded a $45.5 million judgment after she was left alone in 2001 in a bathtub and drowned.
4. Employee Assault
Abbott sued the Rauner homes in 2003 after a female resident of a home in Austin was sexually assaulted by an employee. Abbott wrote, “Not enough was done by administrators of Indian Wells House to investigate the allegations or to protect their clients,…Now a 32-year-old woman has to live with the company’s failure to fulfill minimum standards set forth in Texas law. Nothing will fully restore this woman’s sense of security, but my office will hold these kinds of facilities accountable.”
5. Marco Group Home
The Florida Department of Children and Families in 2004 found that an AHS home failed to report a sexual assault and had overbilled the state. The facility also had “a lack of food,” according to the Lee Newspapers.
Read the full report about the GTCR-owned chain of long-term care homes here.

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