Attorney Dusti Harvey Shares Her Concerns Over Nursing Home Crisis in Albuquerque Journal

Attorney Dusti Harvey, a Partner of Harvey, Foote & Baker Law Firm, is known across New Mexico and the country as a leader in litigation for nursing home neglect and abuse plaintiffs. With her insight as a highly experienced attorney in this specific area of injury law, she recently shared her concerns about New Mexico’s growing nursing home neglect crisis through an article that was published by the Albuquerque Journal. In her opinion piece, Attorney Harvey warned that corporations behind for-profit nursing homes are incentivized to value the dollar over the safety and well-being of elderly residents – and they do so at nearly every opportunity.

She shared a story of Stephanie La Fortune, an elderly resident at a nursing home operated by the corporate giant Genesis HealthCare. Stephanie had dysphasia, a speech impediment that also affected her ability to chew and swallow food. After the nursing home cut costs by reducing staffing, Stephanie was left to eat unsupervised, choked, and passed away from the health complications the incident caused.

As shocking as Stephenie’s incident might be, it is in no way isolated. 88% of New Mexico’s nursing homes have at least one serious safety violation, a pressing concern that we have discussed previously in our blog. To Attorney Harvey, the connection between so many nursing homes with safety violations and so many nursing homes being run by for-profit companies couldn’t be any clearer and could never be misinterpreted as mere coincidence.

In the Albuquerque Journal article, Attorney Dusti Harvey calls for state legislators and politicians to do more to improve New Mexico’s nursing homes and the regulations that are meant to control the industry. “This call to action is rooted in our commitment to uphold the values of fairness, equality, and justice for all New Mexicans. The stories of individuals like Stephanie are a call for urgent reform. They remind us that in the fight for justice, complacency is not an option,” she wrote.