Nursing home facilities in Illinois are responsible for ensuring that employees have been trained on how to properly administer drugs to residents and to make sure that residents are getting the appropriate care and therapy they need each day to improve their quality of life. Nursing home employees are also responsible for assisting many residents with simple, everyday tasks that they may no longer be capable of doing on their own such as bathing, eating or walking.
When a patient does not get the assistance he or she needs to perform these tasks, the patient could be at risk of becoming seriously injured in an accident at the facility. The son of a woman who was a resident at a nursing home facility in Illinois recently filed a lawsuit against the facility citing nursing negligence after his mother fell numerous times at the facility. When his mother was finally hospitalized after one of the falls, it was discovered that she had suffered from several brain injuries caused by the falls.
The elderly patient was a resident at the nursing home located in East St. Louis between May 2008 and April 2010. While in the care of the facility’s staff, the lawsuit claims that the woman fell several times despite the fact that employees knew that the woman was at a higher risk of falling due to her condition. The lawsuit alleges that staff could have taken better measures to prevent the woman from falling and that the facility violated the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act by neglecting the patient’s needs.
In addition to failing to prevent the falls, the lawsuit alleges that staff did not immediately help the woman get the treatment she needed for her injuries after the incidents. As a result, the woman suffered several brain injuries while living at the facility. The brain injuries were not diagnosed until the woman was hospitalized in April 2010.
Source: The Madison St. Clair Record, “Virgil Calvert sued over resident’s alleged brain injury,” Andrea Dearden, Feb. 23, 2012
