NURING HOME WRONGFUL DEATH NEGLIGENCE

[lovedarose]

In Salem, Oregon our mother died 5 days after coming out of the nursing home on April 15, 2002. We had to take her out on April 10, 2002 because of them doing nothing to save her life for 18 days. On day 18 when I talked to the new doctor that they got, without our apprival, he did not know mother and her case at all and he only wanted the POA upon talking any futher.

They removed our doctor on day 13, April 4, 2002. Then until April 18, 2002 he never went to see our mother and save her from dying. She was already dying of starvation. The medical staff claimed that the reason she was not eating or not well was because they had to have new medicine to get her to eat better and gain the loss of weight back!!! That is a lie. Mother had a swallowing problem, which no one addressed for 13 days.

Mother was admitted on March 21, 2002. She was at the hospital for 10 days and they had her on a light liquid diet. Mother was eating and drinking at the hospital. She did not walk this time at the hospital either.

Their Physical Therapist at the nursing home claimed to us on the day he came into her room and tried to get her up to perform walking, that she had walked 80 ft. already. My God, mother stoped walking in the hospital and we had been there with mother already 12 days and she never walked with us!!! Also, mother had an aneurysm, which no one knew, because I had the autopsy to confirm that.

So, after being in this home, in the first 5-10 days the staff was outraged at mother's doctor, who by the way was on his vacation, would not change mother's meds for what they wanted. They claimed to us he was harming our mother, so they fought with him is all we know. They said and acted as if they were fighting for mother. We trusted them.

Now, after all that, the autopsy and her being cremated, we called the Ombudsman Office for the formal complaint on the nursing home. Then the State of Oregon investigates, which took 6 months. Then they said it is a no fault by the nursing home report.

We knew better than that, so we hired a Legal Consulting Firm and they investigated. They tell us it is a wrongful death negligence case. I satrted at this time to look for lawyers and have been doing it, even to this minute, still trying, one never knows.

Now we have tried to get any lawyer to take this case and not one from anywhere wants this case. many say to us that this case is so messy, not interested, big caseload...........ya right, we know better.


I just want people to know about this journey, not that this is the advertisement to get one lawyer. I know already that is not going to happen. We have until April 15, 2005 to file this case. It takes time to work a case as this and then sue. We are facing the facts is all I can say, but please read this and know..............TRUST NO ONE WITH YOUR LOVED ONE IN A NURSING HOME.[/b]

[deniseahohl]

your mother's inability to swallow is termed "dysphagia' a common term for the elderly who become intimidated by the lack of willingness on the part of the hospital and nursing home staff to work with them. my father suffered an injury and had a PEG tube placed into his stomach within two days of diagnosis of dysphagia.

please let me know if you are still interested in discussing this subject and i am sorry about the loss of your mother.

[hello]

My mother's history is too complicated to detail here. As of June 3, 2005, she is finally through suffering.

The attending physician at the nursing home did several things that I requested him not to do. In April 2004, against my wishes, and without my knowledge [in 2003 he agreed to discuss with me in advance, any plan to change her meds] he took her off Reminyl. The reason written in her medical file was that "she was not showing any improvement".

Reminyl is designed to slow down the progress of cognitive deterioration, not make improvements. Her cognitive functioning was stable at the time she was taken off. [She did not have Alzheimer's, but she had multi-infarct dementia.] I did not find out about this until November 2004. I [thought that I] was vigilant, but they slipped this by me.

When she became somnolent in May 2005, I asked the staff if they had changed any of her meds again, and they denied that anything was changed. At the end of May, I discovered that her dosage of primidone, a barbituate, had been doubled from 250mg. to 500 mg. a day, in the beginning of April.

This was done because she had essential tremors. She had essential tremors for years, and their was no good reason to double her dosage of primidone.

There were other signs of negligence.

There is not a damn thing that I can do about it, because Illinois has a politically corrupt and incompetent Ombudsman system. I have been battling with all the powers that be for years. I have contacted everybody that there is to contact about such matters, and now I normally know more about the system than all of the self-described advocacy groups, attorneys, or elected representatives that I have spoken with over the last two years.

We do not have the endless supply of cash necessary to buy justice.

[protectingdad]

I am so sorry for your loss... I don't know about the lawyers that you have spoken with, but I am sure that there are qualified lawyers out there who specialize in Nursing Home Abuse cases, which this clearly is. Also, I think they usually work on a contingency fee basis, which means that you don't pay them anything unless they get you the justice that you deserve.

[uk reader]

Hello, just came accross your post, it is awful what people have to go through and what makes it worse is that this sort of thing happens when you trust others with your loved ones. You expect them to be taken care of. I am in the Uk so i dont have much advice to give you on the law side. I have dealt with uk lawyers whom specialize in care home negligence and they help from the start.

Wishing you and your family well and hope you get some justice


nursinghome-abuse.blogspot.com

[lukemacwan]

The incidence of long term care/nursing home abuse in California is growing rapidly. Every day members of our senior population are victimized. If your loved one is a victim of neglect or abuse in a nursing home or residential facility, there are likely other residents at the nursing home who are also being neglected or abused. In fact, there is probably a continuing pattern of neglect at the facility. In every nursing home negligence case we carefully study the nursing home's history of violations of both federal and state law to determine if there is pattern of abuse and neglect. We'll also focus on staffing and training deficiencies, which are often the root cause of nursing home injuries.
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California Nursing Home Neglect