Florida Nursing Home Lawyer Blog
In Florida, the wrongful death statute outlined in Chapter 768 of Florida Statutes allows civil lawsuits to be filed in court when another person’s negligent act or omission causes the death of another person. This can include care – or lack of care – provided in a nursing home environment. As nursing home neglect and wrongful death attorneys in Fort Lauderdale know, a fair number of these cases center not so much on what nursing home staff did as what they failed to do. This can be the case when individuals suffer the ill effects of poor sanitation and basic care guidelines on how to halt the spread of disease and infection. This includes those condition spread by pests or caused by them directly.
That includes conditions like scabies. a highly-contagious skin condition (spread most often by skin-to-skin contact, but also with shared towels, bedding and clothing) and caused by a parasitic mite called Sarcoptes scabiei, or the human itch mite. The mite burrows into the top layer of one’s skin, where it then lives and feeds. Although it can technically affect anyone, it is, as noted by the epidemiology program at the Florida Department of Health, it is often reported in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. While scabies isn’t typically listed in common examples of wrongful death cases in nursing homes, that is not to say complications from the skin condition can’t be deadly. Continue reading →