23 May 2009

Freedom of Information Law Helps Reporters Uncover Abuses

A simple information request can lead to a wealth of information

Danielle Zielinksi, a former police reporter for the Daily Press, a newspaper in the Hampton Roads area of southeast Virginia, discusses how access to government information helped her investigate and write about a serious issue.

By Danielle Zielinksi
Special Correspondent

Washington — The call came late in the day, on my cell phone. On the line was a fellow newspaper reporter with a tip from a lawyer he knew.

A client was considering suing a local nursing home after his mother became seriously ill from bedsores. No lawsuit had been filed yet, the reporter said, but the lawyer thought he had a case and the police might be investigating. Could I check the story out?

A SLOW BEGINNING

The lawyer didn’t answer my phone call, so I left a message. I called the public information officer at the police department, who promised to ask around and call me back. I moved on.

About a week later, I had forgotten about the story when the lawyer called with the phone number of the woman’s son, who might be willing to talk. The public information officer also called back. The police were investigating the nursing home, but no charges had been filed and the information officer couldn’t comment further.

Then, as I looked through the day’s newspaper, there it was: an obituary for the woman with bedsores.

I called her son and left a message. I called the medical examiner for a cause of death. Nothing yet. The nursing home, not surprisingly, was not talking to the press.

I filed a short piece for the next day’s paper, saying that police were looking into allegations of negligence at the nursing home. The next morning, my voice mail was unusually full. Most of the calls were anonymous accusations against the facility. While I couldn’t publish their unconfirmed accounts, I felt I was onto something.

LESSONS IN FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

With nothing conclusive from the police or medical examiner, I tried the Virginia Department of Health, the agency responsible for licensing nursing homes in the state. Officials there told me they wouldn’t have anything with a patient’s name, but that the agency did conduct nursing home inspections. I’d need to send a written request specifying exactly what records I wanted. It could take a while, and there might not be anything.

Although American journalists are well-versed in the concept of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its state-level counterparts, I hadn’t had many occasions to use it. Usually, I could just informally ask for the information I needed, and someone would be willing to help me out. No paperwork required.

After trying in vain to remember the FOIA lessons of my college journalism classes, I took the easy way out. I headed over to OpenGovVa.org, which provides a useful template the public can use for requesting government records in Virginia.

Virginia’s law is similar to the federal FOIA law — it allows citizens to request records from and attend meetings of government agencies. Once a request is made, the agency has five days to give some kind of response and up to 12 days to fulfill a valid request.

I decided to ask for records from the past two years, hoping to find the case for which I was looking.

A PACKAGE ARRIVES

A week and a half later, a large manila envelope arrived with hundreds of pages of complaint and inspection reports, along with a bill for about $40 in labor and copying fees. It was well worth it.

The records included a total of 73 allegations lodged against the nursing home since January 2006 — 22 in which the facility was cited for specific deficiencies. In those cases, the findings included staff members neglecting to feed a patient regularly, dirty rooms and flies on residents, residents lying in their own urine, staff members not giving medications on time and the facility not taking proper precautions to avoid pressure sores on residents.

My story led with a woman referred to only as Resident #8, a diabetic patient whose family demanded she be taken to the hospital emergency room after noticing changes in her appearance. She was admitted to intensive care with a blood sugar level of 555 (normal blood sugar levels are in the range of 70 milligrams to around 100 milligrams per deciliter of blood) and died two days later. The investigator, I learned from the documents, determined “the facility staff failed to treat Resident #8's elevations in blood sugar.”

An October 2006 inspection of the facility also revealed that the number of deficiencies at the nursing home was more than triple the state and national average.

My story ran April 23, 2008, on the front page.

EPILOGUE

The Department of Health investigated the case of the woman with bedsores, and found “deficiencies involving quality of care.” Investigators gave the facility time to make changes, and weeks later, inspectors found that “quality of care” problems had been corrected.

The Williamsburg/James City County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office determined criminal charges were not warranted in the woman’s death.

In June 2008, the woman’s family members filed a letter of intent to sue the nursing home for civil damages. Her son has vowed to work with Virginia lawmakers to create tougher penalties for facilities found to have serious deficiencies.

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government provides a template for the public to use in requesting information from government agencies. The coalition’s request template can be viewed on the group’s Web site.