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Can Bedsore Lawsuit Settlement Stop Care Center Abuse?

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Newburg, ORHaving to place your loved ones in a long-term care center is often sad and stressful, but Care Center Abuse is unthinkable. Unfortunately, elderly abuse is not uncommon and sometimes it takes a care center abuse lawsuit to stop such violations.

“My father’s health went downhill fast after my sister and I placed him at the Health & Rehabilitation Care Center in our town” says Jeff, choking back his tears. “Not a day goes by when I don’t feel guilty for leaving him there.” It’s normal for family members to blame themselves for selecting a “wrong” care home. But Jeff can find some comfort in knowing that there are state and federal laws to ensure that proper care is provided, and if not, a care center abuse lawyer can help to ensure that patients are getting proper care.

Jeff says his father was neglected for hours at a time and suffered from bed sores and dehydration. “This Care Center is either understaffed or the employees just don’t seem to care,” he explains. “My father told me that no one responds when he hits the button, so one day during a visit, I hit the button and he was right - it took more than an hour for someone to come by.”

Because Jeff’s father has congestive heart failure and cannot walk by himself, he has to get assistance to the bathroom. “His elderly roommate had to walk my dad to the bathroom and then it took forever for someone to come back and help him to his bed,” Jeff says. “Another time an orderly was on the phone in the evening chatting with someone and wouldn't even come to the desk to answer my question. He looked right at me and still didn't talk with us or tell us he would be with us shortly. After waiting for more than 10 minutes we just went to my father’s room and still no one came to see what we needed.”

Selecting the right nursing home to care for your loved one is typically an extremely difficult decision, particularly when you are putting trust in the care center staff and believe the facility’s conditions are sanitary, at the very least. In January 2013, a nursing home negligence lawsuit was settled after the family of a 77-year-old woman was admitted to Evergreen Health Care Center in Chicago. Her family found her covered in bed sores.

The elderly woman had suffered a stroke so she was completely dependent upon the staff at the facility for her care. On numerous occasions the family had noticed soiled bed linens, and one family member noticed that their grandmother hadn’t been “changed” for hours and wasn’t turned - she was always in the same position. Another time the family noticed that her feeding tube had loosened from the machine.

More troubling is that this particular center almost had its license revoked in 2010 for multiple health code violations and patient neglect. It took a Care Center Abuse lawsuit for any changes to be made. After Evergreen Health Care reportedly settled with the family for $575,000, it was placed under new management and a number of registered nurses were hired. Granddaughter Vania Beard said that “A nursing home has an obligation to report certain conditions… The state is supposed to investigate complaints from hospitals, family members and law enforcement agencies and post those results on the web. I didn’t do my research.”

Vania’s grandmother died four months after entering the center, with bed sores covering her entire body. Jeff has filed a negligence claim and is also in the process of finding another home for his father.

READ ABOUT CARE CENTER ABUSE LAWSUITS

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READER COMMENTS

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If long care facilities such as nursing homes are to be held liable for medical issues such as bedsores incurred by a patient while in the care of the facility then why can't the family of a patient file a lawsuit against a hospital for their loved one suffering a terrible bedsore while in the care of the hospital. Why are hospitals protected by legislature from being sued for bedsores? My husband was in the critical care unit of a local hospital for two months and suffered a very bad bedsore and it was still not healed when he passed away 6 months later. The excruciating pain he suffered because of the bedsore was ten times worse than any pain he suffered or remembered suffering from the 6 heart attacks he suffered in a two week period which left him incapacitated and having to lay in bed which meant he was putting pressure on the bedsore every minute of every day which caused him to experience the terrible pain. Everyone wants to sue the nursing homes well from my experience with my husband being in a nursing home for 4 months after the 2 month hospital stay the nursing home staff works just as hard as the hospital staff. I was by my husband's side every day all day for his six month illness until I brought him home where he died shortly after and at home I was by his side 24/7 also. Observing the performance of the staff at the hospital as well as the nursing home hour after hour gave me vast insight as to quality of the staff and care given to patients. The highly praised supposedly top notch hospital, where my husband was a patient, failed him by not placing him on an air mattress on his bed upon his admittance in the critical coronary care unit but waited until he developed the bedsore and then ordered and placed him on an air mattress. In my limited medical expertise I think they call that performing a preventative measure, which we all know means doing something that will in all likelihood prevent a much worse condition or case scenario from occurring. But when I tried to hold the hospital accountable for their neglect no attorney would take the case. But I was told by the attorney that if I could prove that the nursing home neglected him in any way they would be more than happy to handle that case. In closing I would say that in my opinion and observance there is just as much hospital abuse as nursing home abuse but also in my opinion the hospitals can better afford to protect themselves with insurance and pay lobbyists to keep the heat of accountability off their doorstep.

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