Nursing homes are supposed to be safe places for elderly Chicago residents and other vulnerable patients. In order to provide patients with a safe facility, though, nursing homes must make sure they are properly staffed.
Nursing home residents need to be carefully monitored, they often need to be bathed and groomed by someone else, and they need to receive their medical treatments in order to remain as healthy as possible. When nursing homes fail to make sure enough workers are available to help care for and treat residents, vulnerable nursing home patients may quickly become victims of neglect andinadequate staffing errors.
Conditions at one facility have become utterly intolerable due to inadequate staffing that a state is prohibiting the facility from admitting any new patients. It was reported last week that current patients at the nursing home will have about 30 days to transfer to a safer facility while the nursing home resolves its safety issues.
The nursing home is located in Tennessee. The state conducted an investigation after receiving numerous complaints from nursing home patients and their families. Last week, the state released the report of its investigation, revealing dozens of incidents of medication errors and nursing home neglect.
The inspection shows that the facility failed to have enough workers on duty on several occasions. This meant that some patients were not bathed for weeks at a time. Others were forced to sit in their own waste for hours at a time. And the report noted that at least one patient did not receive the assistance he needed on one occasion to eat. Other patients suffered injuries from medication errors, the report noted. Patients were deprived of medications or given medications in the wrong doses because there were not enough workers available to make sure patients were receiving the treatment they needed.
Individuals who are harmed by nursing home neglect may be entitled to receive compensation for their pain, suffering, medical expenses and other damages. To learn more about protecting your rights after being harmed by neglect or abuse, you may want to consider consulting an attorney who will know how to fight for the compensation you need and deserve.
Source: The Tennessean, “Madison nursing home gave patients wrong doses time and again,” Walter F. Roche Jr., Feb. 26, 2013
