Many nursing homes work hard to create an image of competently managed facilities staffed by well-trained caring professionals. However, far too often, the reality is much different. After entrusting these facilities to care for their elderly loved ones, family members learn the horrifying truth that their elderly family members often suffer terrible injuries due to abuse and neglect.
Legal cases involving nursing home neglect are never straightforward or easily won. Nursing homes are notorious for putting up serious legal fights the moment they are accused of hurting a resident, intentionally or unintentionally. Our Bel Air nursing home abuse attorneys at Portner & Shure have been successfully representing nursing home negligence clients for more than 30 years. Recently, we have also been called to represent people who have lost loved ones due to COVID-19 spreading unchecked in local nursing homes.
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How to Identify Nursing Home Negligence
Individuals should be vigilant for signs that their elderly family members are suffering from abuse and neglect while in an assisted living center. This vigilance is required because elderly adults are often unable or unwilling to inform their family members that they are being abused or neglected.
Common signs of abuse or neglect include:
- Bedsores
- Weight changes
- Behavioral changes (e.g., depression, anxiety, etc.)
- Overmedication
- Family members discouraged from visiting
- Unexplained injuries or bruises
Types of Nursing Home Abuse
Federal law defines nursing home abuse as the “willful infliction of injury, unreasonable confinement, intimidation, or punishment with resulting physical harm, pain, or mental anguish." It is a crime that needs to be sorted by the authorities, but it is also an act that can be met with direct civil action like a lawsuit.
Nursing home abuse includes:
- Physical assault
- Sexual assault
- Imprisonment
- Mental and emotional abuse
- Deprivation of food, water, and medicine
While staff members perpetrate the abuse, nursing homes are often the source of the abuse. This is because nursing homes often fail to perform proper background investigations on their staff members, which can lead to hiring dangerous individuals.
Types of Nursing Home Neglect
Federal law defines nursing home neglect as the “failure to provide goods and services necessary to avoid physical harm, mental anguish or mental illness." Neglect happens unintentionally, but it can still be extremely dangerous.
Nursing home neglect includes:
- Failing to prevent bedsores
- Failing to prevent infections
- Failing to inform medical providers of medical issues
- Failing to prevent injuries such as falls
- Failing to prevent dehydration or malnutrition
As with nursing home abuse, nursing home neglect and negligence result from staffing issues. Nursing homes are ultimately responsible for these staffing issues as they either hire individuals that are either unqualified or unfit.
Nursing Home Negligence & Coronavirus/COVID-19 Cases
The negligence and neglect issues that nursing homes historically suffered have been amplified by the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly half of the deaths caused by COVID-19 in Maryland have occurred in nursing homes and assisted living centers.
Nursing homes are required to have written rules and procedures outlining the standard of care for elderly adults and to prevent neglect. Nursing home staff members often ignored these rules and procedures outright, which has increased the chances of the deadly virus circulating in the nursing home. The severity of this negligence has resulted in Maryland launching investigations and issuing citations to nursing homes.
Choose Our Legal Team Today
Portner & Shure, P.A. and our Bel Air, Maryland nursing home negligence lawyers are ready to take a legal fight to the nursing home that hurt your elderly loved one. We can pursue all available damages, like medical bills and residency costs. We are prepared to defeat any defense, like trying to blame your elderly loved one for injuries they clearly did not cause.
