Articles Tagged with nursing home negligence

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U.S. government researchers have discovered elderly people – and nursing home residents in particular – are suffering alarming rates of concussions and brain injuries. 

Although the exact reason isn’t clear, some opine it has to do with the fact that those who are suffering repeated falls aren’t copping to it. Those who have suffered one fall are more likely to suffer another, and the odds are greater that the next fall will be more severe. But some elderly people may fear that admitting to a fall means they will lose their independence. In turn, they minimize it. Or, in the case of nursing home residents, the fall simply isn’t deemed serious enough for immediate medical attention.

However, what could appear to be a minor incident might actually be much more serious. It could be a concussion. It could even be a traumatic brain injury. In either case, the chances of another fall will be increased.  Continue reading →

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Nursing home residents suffer high rates of facial injuries, according to a recent study published in JAMA Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery. In all, approximately 20,000 individuals residing in nursing homes throughout the U.S. have suffered what could be considered “serious facial injuries” at some point in the last 12 months. 

Most of these injuries are incurred by falling and hitting hard surfaces. A substantial number also occur due to patients falling while getting in and out of bed.

Given that we already have 1.4 million people living in long-term nursing homes in the U.S. and that the population is aging, programs that focus on preventing fall-related injuries in nursing homes are going to be all the more important. This is especially true considering the severity these types of nursing home injuries can cause – including immense pain, long-term disability and hastened health decline leading to premature death. Continue reading →

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For a brief moment last year, it seemed as if nursing home arbitration agreements might be a thing of the past. That’s because the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new rule barring any nursing home that accepts federal money from CMS (which is virtually all nursing homes) from requiring mandatory arbitration agreements during the admissions process. That was supposed to take effect in November. 

However, a federal judge in Mississippi granted an injunction against implementation of that rule, at the request of a nursing home industry trade group. The CMS quietly released a memo in December indicating it wouldn’t enforce the arbitration rule so long as the injunction was in place. At this point, there remains uncertainty because it isn’t clear how the Trump administration, which oversees CMS, will handle this issue.

So in the meanwhile, courts across the country continue to weigh in. Prior to the injunction, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that an arbitration agreement signed by an adult son on behalf of his father was not binding on his father. The son did not have power of attorney and thus lacked authority to sign the documents on his father’s behalf, and thus his father wasn’t required to have his claim handled by an arbitrator.  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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Nursing home abuse lawsuits are often filed as medical malpractice actions. That’s because the cases involve the failure of medical staffers – certified nursing assistants, registered nurses and doctors – to abide by the applicable standard of care. The reason why it is important to distinguish between medical malpractice claims and those involving general negligence is that the process for prevailing on a medical malpractice claim is far more involved. Medical malpractice lawsuits require expert witnesses willing to attest that the medical professionals who are defendants in your case did not meet the basic standards of care, and therefore breached their duty to the patient and should be accountable for resulting injuries. 

This is a stricter standard than general negligence.

In a recent case out of Georgia, a state appellate court has revived a lawsuit against a physician in a small-town nursing home over the treatment of a patient who died after suffering from an infection at the facility stemming from an untreated pressure sore.  Continue reading →

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In Wetzel v. Glen St. Andrew Living Community, a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, plaintiff alleges a discriminatory denial of equal housing opportunity on the basis of her sexual orientation. Specifically, she says the housing center and its managers failed to protect her from other residents who were hostile, verbally insulting and physically abusing her on a regular basis since it became known that her life partner, now deceased, was a woman. 

The woman’s story was recently chronicled by The New York Times, which explained how the 69-year-old plaintiff had been grateful to find the tiny room in the senior living community after losing her life partner of 30 years to colon cancer. She battled health problems herself and didn’t have much in savings. As she began to become acquainted with other residents, she revealed she had raised her son with her partner. That information was not received well, and plaintiff almost instantly knew other residents were upset by it. Word traveled fast.

In the months that followed, she was pushed, shoved and spit on. She suffered injuries including bumps on her head, a black eye and bruising. One male resident in particular was threatened her repeatedly with violence, using obscene language and threatening to “throw you down an elevator shaft.”  Continue reading →

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The children of the elderly woman pleaded with hospital staffers to save their mother, who was suffering from bedsores and pneumonia. The staffers had the resources. They had the tools and the equipment. What they didn’t have, they say, was permission. The woman had previously signed a do-not-resuscitate order. However, her children say the elderly woman lacked the mental capacity to sign such an order – something they tried in vain to argue with the staff as their mother was fighting for her life. She died in that hospital bed of her ailments in 2012. She was 67.

Now, Courtroom View Network is covering the developments of the civil lawsuit filed in Texas by her children who alleged medical malpractice against the hospital, the nursing home where she lived for years, the doctor for the nursing home and the physician’s assistant there. There were five opening statements from the defense side – one for each of the five defendants, who are individually represented.

Plaintiffs’ attorney posited to jurors during opening statements that decedent died of pneumonia which was the result of bedsores which were the direct result of nursing home negligence. Further, plaintiff lawyer accused the nursing home of wrongly allowing patient to sign a “do not resuscitate” (DNR) order, and also of allowing a neighbor to have medical power of attorney – even though at that time, she suffered signs of severe mental illness.  Continue reading →

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A new report from Kaiser Health News uncovers a troubling practice that may startle many hospital patients who must be referred to nursing homes: The ones affiliated with hospitals are often some of the most poorly-rated. 

Nursing homes are the next step down for patients who might no longer be in critical condition, but still require additional daily care. Choosing a facility is an important decision, though, especially considering government data showing almost 40 percent of long-term nursing facilities have been cited by health inspectors over the last three years for either causing harm to a patient or operating in a way that injuries are probable. Despite this, hospital managers are reportedly failing to share objective or personal knowledge about the quality of the nursing homes to which they are referring their patients. In some cases, the report indicates, managers are actually pushing patients to the facilities associated with the hospitals, even when they know there are alternatives that are comparable or better.

Nursing home abuse and nursing home neglect isn’t disclosed to prospective patients and family members by the hospital managers, even when they know about it. A spokesman for the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform recently noted that even some of the most poorly-rated nursing homes are still packed because hospitals keep sending their patients there.  Continue reading →

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The family of a woman who died recently at a nursing home in New York after testing positive for Legionella now say they intend to sue the facility. 

The 86-year-old woman died in late October, just days after her son was told she had contracted the bacteria, which causes Legionnaires’ disease. At the time, the patient had reportedly been battling several bouts of what was though to be pneumonia. She was hospitalized several times, with the hospital finally releasing her back to the nursing home with regrets there was “nothing else they could do for her.”

Plaintiff, through his attorney, expressed outrage to staff writers at the Saratogian that so little attention is paid to this serious problem in nursing homes. If there were an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in schools or workplaces, there would be outrage. Instead, it seems nursing homes too often get a pass for failure to prevent the spread of infections disease and harmful bacteria. Too often, it probably goes unnoticed. But in this case, it was known and there were no repercussions, until plaintiff filed this lawsuit. There were four reported cases of the disease just at this one facility at the same time, including three patients and one staffer. The health department is conducting an investigation to determine the exact source of the outbreak.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Legionella is a type of bacterium that lives in freshwater environments, such as lakes and streams. However, it can become a health concern when it grows and then spreads to human water systems, such as hot tubs, plumbing systems, hot water tanks/ heaters, cooling towers or decorative fountains. It grows the best in warm water. Contaminated water is breathed in through small droplets in the air. It can also sometimes be spread when contaminated drinking water “goes down the wrong pipe,” and makes its way to the lungs rather than the digestive track.  Continue reading →

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A woman in Oregon has filed a $2.7 million lawsuit against a nursing home, as well the physical therapy and hospice providers who were on contract with the facility, for alleged negligence resulting in the death of her elderly mother and stepfather. 

According to The Register-Guard, the woman alleges in her wrongful death lawsuit that administrators and therapists at the facility failed to meet the needs of her parents, ages 91 and 92, and that this failure resulted in their premature deaths, just weeks apart from one another.

Plaintiff’s stepfather was 92 when he died in late 2014, and her mother was 91 when she died just a few weeks later. Plaintiff is the representative for the separate estates of both parents, who had each previously been diagnosed with dementia and were deemed a serious fall risk. Even though the nursing home had this knowledge, plaintiff asserts, staffers failed to prevent them from falling numerous times, leading to serious injuries and the acceleration of their deaths.  Continue reading →

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