Family of dead patient seeks compensation from state
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
The family of a mental patient at the
Arkansas Health Center in Benton who died from pneumonia last year has asked the state Claims Commission for compensation.
The claim filed by Phyllis Hancock of Mabelvale, mother of the late Michael Johnson, accuses staff members at the center of inaction that led to his death.
Johnson was 44 when he died May 30th, 2003. He had been living at the facility since February 1998, after he suffered head injuries in a fall in 1996.
The Arkansas Health Center houses about 300 of the state`s most medically fragile mentally ill and disabled people. State and federal nursing home regulators and the attorney general`s office described systemic negligence after inspections last year. In an
eleven-month span ending with Johnson`s death, six patients died at the home.
