State moves to license caregivers
Assembly OKs bill that targets bilking

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/jobs/news/chi-0504170168apr17,1,7882713.story

By Deborah Horan
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 17, 2005

The young Mongolian immigrant seemed the perfect candidate to become a home caregiver when she showed up at an Orland Park grandfather's home to care for his ailing wife. She was friendly, courteous, prompt and attentive to the needs of the 85-year-old woman.

Three years later, the Orland Park couple's son-in-law is sifting through bank statements, phone bills, mortgages and immigration papers trying to figure out what happened. The caregiver, Zola, was given more than $180,000 by his elderly father-in-law, according to a financial exploitation lawsuit filed against the woman.

For reasons Stephen Janota says he doesn't understand, his father-in-law handed Zola bundles of cash--$4,000 here, $800 there--for months, sometimes making two trips to the bank in one day, according to bank statements and the lawsuit. He gave her a laptop, cell phone and diamond ring, among other gifts, Janota said.

And the bad news kept coming: Zola had an alias, an arrest for shoplifting, an expired visitor's visa and no work permit, according to Janota. He also discovered that while she was living with his in-laws, she got married on a trip to Las Vegas , taking a third last name.

"It's relentless, this whole thing," Janota said. "It just doesn't stop."

Advocates for the elderly and Illinois lawmakers hope to put an end to such stories with legislation designed to track home caregivers and monitor the agencies that refer them. On Thursday and Friday, the House and Senate unanimously passed bills that would require home health-care providers to be licensed by the state and to conduct criminal background checks of workers sent to care for the elderly.

The AARP Illinois, which had lobbied for licensure, lauded the bill as a positive "first step."

"It's a common-sense bill," said Donna Ginther, manager of state affairs for AARP Illinois. "If you're not licensed, you cannot say you are going to provide in-home services."

The roughly 500 home care agencies in Illinois have not needed licenses and have not been required to check the criminal history of the caregivers they refer. The 72 members of the National Private Duty Association do voluntarily check for criminal history, said Debbie Witt, a contract lobbyist for the association.

AARP seeks registry

The bills would authorize the Department of Public Health to handle licensing of home care agencies, which also would be required to monitor the workers they refer and alert the department to any suspected abuse or neglect.

If the bill is signed into law, the AARP next plans to push for a law creating a registry. Posting the list of offenders who have abused an elderly person in their care, including exploiting them or coercing them, would help stop them from working in a new home, the AARP said.

"We want to be able to look and find out if there's been a complaint or a conviction," Ginther said.

AARP officials hope criminal background checks required by the law will include sexual offenses, including pedophilia, and minor offenses, such as theft. According to the bill, the background checks would conform to the law that applies to workers with direct care access to individuals in long-term facilities.

That law may soon be strengthened. The Public Health Department received a $2.5 million grant to upgrade the process of conducting criminal background checks for those employees in long-term facilities, said Tammy Leonard, spokeswoman for the department.

"We need a requirement that is stringent enough that we are picking up misdemeanors," Ginther said.

Such a strict background check may have spared Janota some headaches. He could have discovered early on, for instance, that Zola was reportedly residing in the country illegally.

And if the agency that referred Zola had been licensed and mandated to report suspected abuse or suspicious behavior--such as an overly friendly relationship between a caregiver and an elderly resident--Janota may have discovered earlier that his father-in-law was giving her large sums of money, Ginther and Witt said.

Instead, Janota discovered the depleted family savings only after he became suspicious enough to check the joint bank account he and his wife shared with his in-laws, he said. He was shocked to find $148,000 missing.

After that, Janota said he spent months trying to persuade his father-in-law to fire Zola and finally succeeded in getting her out of the house last April, roughly 18 months after she moved in.

On the day Zola left, Janota tried to take her cell phone away--since his father-in-law was paying for it, he said. Janota alleges that she "jumped him," and he pressed charges for battery.

2nd relative has run-in

Janota later discovered his father-in-law had bailed Zola out of jail when she was picked up for shoplifting, which occurred two months after she started working in the home. And he found out the elderly man co-signed a lease for an apartment Zola rented in Chicago after she left his father-in-law's home.

Finally, he discovered in November that a relative had hired her, through a second agency, to care for the relative's elderly mother-in-law.

"He said he'd hired someone named Zola," Janota said. "I couldn't believe it. I knew it had to be the same woman."

Janota is suing Zola and the Star Domestic Employment Agency for exploitation and negligent hiring, for allegedly failing to determine if Zola had the appropriate documentation to work in the United States legally.

A woman at Star Domestic said her agency never referred Zola to the family.

Janota spent $380 on a private investigator who tracked Zola down to serve notice of the lawsuit. Since then, he said, the trail has gone cold again, and he is not optimistic.

"I don't know where she is," he said.

dhoran@tribune.com. Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

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