Articles Posted in nursing home neglect

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According to recent news article from The National Law Review, one family has filed a lawsuit in which they claim the nursing home wherein their loved one was living failed to make any attempts to resuscitate her when they found her in a non-responsive condition.

The civil complaint alleges the victim was first admitted to defendant’s nursing home after a bad case of pneumonia, along with renal failure and complications with her diabetes management.  The family hoped the nursing home would be better able to monitor and control her diabetes, and then when she was further along in her recovery, they would take her home. That was a realistic goal given that she was only 52-years-old, but unfortunately, she died in the nursing home facility. Continue reading →

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Many people come to Florida later in life to retire.  However, many of these retirees will eventually need to transition into a nursing home or other 24-hour care center, and we have many of these of these facilities here.

The problem is some of the facility owners see things a bit differently than us when it comes to their patients. Families see a facility that is designed to allow their loved one to live in peace and with a sense of well-deserved dignity, while also providing them access to much needed around-the-clock professional medical care.  Continue reading →

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A nursing home operating in the state of Florida owes a duty of care to all residents at the facility.  In a typical negligence case, that duty of care is a duty to act as a reasonable and prudent person to prevent foreseeable injury to foreseeable persons and property.  However, there are various other claims that can be filed in a negligence action.

Two of the common claims filed in nursing home negligence actions are failure to properly train staff and negligent hire or retention.  This is an allegation that the management of a nursing home is not acting in a reasonable and prudent manner with respect to staffing practices, and that results in a foreseeable accident to residents. Continue reading →

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When we send our loved ones to a nursing home facility, we hope they will be safe and well-cared for.  In some cases, that unfortunately doesn’t always happen, and patients suffer severe personal injury or even death as a result of nursing home negligence.

In some cases, however, we have nursing home staff that is trying to do the right thing, but this is not always the case.  Sometimes we have staff that is taking advantage of, abusing, or otherwise harassing nursing home residents. Continue reading →

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According to a recent article from Modern Healthcare, the U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled that nursing home party to a case could enforce its arbitration agreement on two families who had loved ones living in the nursing home facility.

This was a 7-1 decision. While there are now nine justices on the Supreme Court, Justice Gorsuch was not on the court when the case was initially heard and did not participate in the opinion.  The only justice who did not agree with the ruling was Justice Thomas.  Based upon previous decisions on the federal act in question, many legal scholars expected this to be the court’s holding in this matter. Continue reading →

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As our population is steadily aging, the quality of long-term nursing home care must be a top priority for the health care industry and our elected leaders. Unfortunately, one area that seems to be lagging – and which will only exacerbate if not addressed – is the shortage of nursing home aides.

These are the individuals who interact most closely with residents on a daily basis, helping them with basic daily tasks and functions, such as eating, toileting, bathing and teeth brushing. Yet, the lack of individuals in this field has meant that many nursing home residents aren’t receiving the quality of care to which they are entitled.

A recent report by Kaiser Health News reports shortages of home health aides and nursing assistants is threatening care for people with serious disabilities and vulnerable, elderly adults. In some cases, facilities have denied admission to people because they did not have the proper essential staff in order to provide a minimum level of care for them. It’s been the experience of our Orlando nursing home neglect attorneys, however, that some facilities will continue to accept patients, despite not having the essential number of staffers. What’s more, in some cases, the failure to fill these positions has less to do sometimes with availability of workers and more to do with the fact that for-profit facilities are looking for avenues to cut corners.  Continue reading →

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Although our population as a whole is growing older, an increasing number of nursing homes are taking on younger patients. This can lead to conflict and potentially danger for those most vulnerable. 

Recently on NPR Morning Edition, KRCC in Colorado explored this phenomenon, attributing the situation largely to the fact that there are very few long-term care facilities for younger people in need of constant care. These would include individuals who have suffered traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injuries who need around-the-clock care and assistance.

One case detailed by the station involves a man in his 40s. In 2015, he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he reportedly “head-butted a car” and “scrambled the old brain bucket” (those are his own words). Today, he struggles with speech. Daily tasks are a challenge. He spent several months in a nursing home, where the majority of residents were over the age of 65. However, he was one of a growing number of under-65 residents at the facility. This is not an isolated phenomenon, and we see it in Florida too.  Continue reading →

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Nursing home residents disproportionately suffer from sepsis, a condition that results in multiple organ failure and death. It caused by the body’s overreaction to bacterial infection.

Now, a doctor reports he has identified a possible treatment for the deadly condition, which kills 300,000 people in the U.S. annually – a significant number of those nursing home residents who received poor care.

According to NPR, it started early last year in Virginia. An emergency room doctor treated a woman in her late 40s who was suffering from sepsis. It was a severe case. Her kidneys weren’t functioning, and neither were lungs. The doctor honestly did not expect her to survive the night. It was one of those cases where any last ditch effort was welcome. He had heard of an obscure studies in which doctors at a local university had treated patients with some success by giving Vitamin C intravenously. Continue reading →

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A case nursing home elopement ended tragically in Massachusetts recently, when a man who suffered a severe brain injury wandered away from a nursing home one Tuesday night. He was found dead the next day. 

Local news outlets reported the 54-year-old was last seen at the nursing home around 7 p.m. the evening before. Having suffered a severe brain injury  from a ruptured aneurysm which resulted in severe memory loss, as well as numerous other medical conditions, the man wasn’t necessarily considered high risk, the way some Alzheimer’s or dementia patients are. He wasn’t required to wear a monitoring bracelet. Staffers called police when they realized the man was missing, but told authorities they didn’t know if the building had surveillance cameras and weren’t sure how to access records to determine exactly when the exit doors had been opened. The evening before he disappeared, his brother had just helped him move from the ground floor into a newer room, reserved for patients with longer stays.

Although he was often confused, believing he still lived in his childhood hometown, doctors were hopeful that he would be able to regain a significant amount of his brain function. He had been in a coma for two months after the aneurysm ruptured back in October. However, much of the time recently, he’d been agitated and confused. It is believed he went missing some time between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Staff believed he may have simply walked out the front door of the main floor, possibly by following someone else out. The facility filed their missing persons report around 8:20 p.m.  Continue reading →

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In an increasing number of places, mandatory nursing home arbitration agreements are being challenged. These agreements are binding contracts, but many people don’t realize that when they sign them as part of the admissions process to a nursing home, they are signing away their right to have any future disputes resolved in court. Instead, those disputes are funneled to an arbitrator, who is not required to follow the law. Proceedings aren’t public and arbitrators more often than not favor the nursing home. Even when damages are awarded to the plaintiff, the sum tends to be for far less than what plaintiff likely would have gotten if the case had gone to trial. 

There are many reasons to fight back against enforcement of an arbitration agreement with a nursing home. That’s what some in Minnesota are doing, according to the Star Tribune. In one case, plaintiff believed she had a strong legal case against the nursing home where her father had lived before his sudden death at age 89. There was evidence the assisted living facility failed to respond in a timely manner when her father vomited numerous times and screamed for help while pointing to his badly swollen stomach. After several hours, eh died of complications related to a common hernia, something that was easily treatable had he received prompt medical attention.

When plaintiff sued the nursing home for this, they hit back with a motion to compel arbitration, pointing to an arbitration agreement signed when her father was first admitted to the facility. The nursing home claims the densely-worded contract requires the family to have the dispute resolved in arbitration, even though it involves a claim for wrongful death.  Continue reading →

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