African Americans Can’t Win, Break Even, or Get out of the System: the Persistence of “unequal Treatment” in Nursing Home Care

Bennie Saxon had dementia. Because his family could not care for him at home, he was placed at Alden Wentworth Rehabilitation and Health Care Center (“Alden Wentworth”), a predominately African American nursing home in Chicago, Illinois. On May 4, 2009, he fell four stories to his death. The Cook County Office of the Medical Examiner ruled Mr. Saxon’s fall an accident, but his family alleges that his death was caused by neglect. This was not the first incident at this nursing home. Between 2004 and 2009, thirteen civil cases were filed against Alden Wentworth, more than three times the lawsuits filed against half of the city’s ninety-one nursing homes. In fact three years prior to Mr. Saxon’s death, the nursing home settled a case for the death of Bernetta Hall, a disabled forty-six-year-old woman. Mrs. Hall entered Alden with a single pressure sore at the base of her spine; however, after just five weeks, “she developed sores on her heels, buttock and ear because of the poor care she received at the home,” which contributed to her death.1 Alden Wentworth, a predominately African American nursing home, is part of a chain of thirty for-profit nursing homes throughout Illinois, among which are three predominately African American nursing homes and sixteen predominately Caucasian nursing homes.2 All three of the predominately African American nursing homes received the lowest quality ranking by the federal government, whereas fewer than half of the sixteen predominately Caucasian facilities received that same rating.3 In fact, the two nursing homes that received the highest quality ratings were predominately Caucasian.4 However, a 2009 investigation by the Chicago Reporter (“Reporter”)