Do you know of anyone admitted to a nursing home or in an assisted living housing? How are they being treated over there? Are they living happily? Are there any complaints you’ve heard from them? Well, it’s not surprising to hear cases of elder abuse going on in nursing homes. Abuse comes in different forms. While some of them may appear intentional, but even minor negligence is regarded as abuse provided someone suffers from it. More than 40% of nursing home patients have reported abuse resulting from nursing home neglect and as many as 90% reported to have experienced some form of abuse.
If your loved one has been subjected to abuse, that is a ground to seek legal help from an attorney specializing in neglect law. Some assisted living facilities could be understaffed or having incompetent staff leading to negligence and carelessness of their primary duty, which is to take care of their residents. As result, a resident may develop serious injuries or even untimely death. When that happens, it’s up to the resident’s family to find legal justice and that is where a neglect lawyer comes in. Although the main purpose a nursing home lawyer is to help the affected families with their personal injury claims, such legal approach also serves as a warning for other nursing homes not to abuse their residents.
Here are some grounds that may warrant you to file a nursing home abuse claim.
Incompetency
It’s the responsibility of nursing homes to hire competent and qualified personnel to look after their residents. In fact, this is an obligation towards their residents in providing quality care. Therefore, before hiring, a nursing home ensure to conduct a thorough background check on a prospective employee. Education background, job experiences, cases of violence, crime or abuse are something a nursing home could look at to ensure the safety of their residents. In addition, if a qualified person was employed by a nursing facility but didn’t receive adequate training to match up the level of care expected by both a family and law, the nursing home is liable should any abuse occur.
Understaffing
While the staff may be qualified and all that, negligence and carelessness may arise in situations of understaffing. If there are many residents and few nurses to take care of them, chances of negligence and carelessness to occur are very high. Research by the Center for Disease Control suggests that the ideal ratio of staff to a resident is 1 staff member to every 2 residents. In addition, understaffing may also affect the current employees, especially if their work demands a lot from them while they are poorly compensated. This will in turn affect their morale, affecting their productivity.
Mistakes and errors
In a nursing environment, a slight mistake could be the difference between life and death of residents. Errors stemming from poorly prescribed medications can be fatal. If it’s established that the resident suffers as a result of prescription drug error, the nursing home or the staff responsible for drug administration can be held liable.
With a good nursing home neglect lawyer, you are able to claim for compensations should there be any evidence of neglect or abuse. Some of them include sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and financial abuse.
