Nursing Home Abuse
When you trust your loved one to a nursing home, you expect that they will be treated with respect, diligence and dignity. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it is what the law requires. If your loved one has been injured by nursing home abuse, your family may be entitled to financial compensation. First, you need to hire a nursing home attorney who can file a lawsuit on your family’s behalf. Howard Stallings Law fights for vulnerable nursing home residents and their families when the facility has broken the law.
Types of Nursing Home Abuse
There are multiple types of nursing home abuse that are forbidden under state and federal law. They include:
- Physical: Staff cannot strike or physically mishandle a resident. Even being needlessly rough with a resident can be considered abuse.
- Neglect: Nursing home staff must look after your loved one medically and help them with the activities of daily life. Neglect can lead to malnutrition, dehydration, falls and infections.
- Financial: Staff may misappropriate your loved one’s money or possessions. In extreme cases, staff may even pressure a vulnerable resident to change their wills.
- Emotional: Nursing home staff cannot verbally abuse, degrade or humiliate your loved one. Emotional abuse can have definite physical effects.
- Sexual: Nursing home staff may assault your loved one or otherwise sexually exploit them. Your family may only learn of the abuse from physical signs that may be hard to notice.
- Resident-on-Resident: Nursing home residents have the right to be free from all abuse, and not just wrongdoing committed by staff. The nursing home must protect your loved one from fellow residents as well.
There is another form of abuse known as chemical restraints, when nursing home staff administer powerful drugs, simply to control a resident and keep them from needing more attention.
Nursing Home Resident Rights Under Federal Law
Federal nursing home regulations are very clear on a resident’s rights. According to 42 CFR § 483.12, the resident must be “free from abuse, neglect, misappropriation of resident property, and exploitation.”
Not only must the facility ensure that the resident is free from such forms of abuse, but they must also not hire individuals who have been previously found to have committed these types of conduct. The nursing home must also promptly report any allegations of abuse to the state within two hours of the report, and they must develop policies and procedures designed to prevent abuse in their facility.
If your loved one’s rights have been violated, your family may file a lawsuit against the nursing home when your family member was injured.
Reporting Abuse to the State or Nursing Home
It falls to the family to report nursing home abuse to both get accountability and to make it stop. The nursing home cannot simply sit on the complaint and do nothing. Their consequences could be far worse when they do not report abuse to the state almost immediately.
You can also report the abuse directly to the state, who would likely perform an immediate investigation into your allegations. There is also an option to inform a nursing home ombudsman whose job it is to help families when dealing with issues at a facility.
Your family must be on the lookout for signs of nursing home abuse and take immediate action. Not only can it help your loved one, but it could also ensure that the nursing home does not do the same thing to other vulnerable residents.
Damages in Nursing Home Abuse Cases
Your family would be entitled to full damages that both you and your loved one suffered from nursing home abuse. If your loved one passed away from the nursing home’s wrongdoing, you would be able to file a wrongful death lawsuit where you could receive your own damages for the loss of a loved one.
The bulk of your damages would come from what your loved one was forced to endure at the hands of the nursing home. Your loved one likely went through a painful ordeal between the time of their injury and death (and they have certainly suffered if they are still alive). In that event, your family can receive the following:
- Medical expenses
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Emotional distress
- Embarrassment and humiliation
If your case goes to trial, your family may even be awarded punitive damages, depending on the extent of the wrongdoing. Juries can be particularly angered by the actions of profit-seeking nursing homes, whose actions resulted in immeasurable suffering on the part of the residents. Punitive damages are rare, but they can also be very substantial.
The Challenges of a Nursing Home Abuse Case
There are a number of challenges that you may face when filing a nursing home lawsuit that include:
- Your loved one may not still be alive to recount the abuse, and they may not be able to describe it if they are
- Nursing homes go into overdrive to protect themselves from any type of liability, and they may try to throw up a figurative brick wall to keep you from learning what happened
- The facility may argue that your loved one’s condition resulted from their health and not the abuse they suffered
- Even when they do try to settle cases, nursing homes may try to offer you a paltry settlement, meaning that you will have to fight them for more money
Contact a North Carolina Child Sexual Abuse Attorney Today
It may not be too late to file a lawsuit for what happened to you when you were a child. Contact the Howard Stallings Law Firm today to discuss a potential lawsuit and whether you may be eligible for financial compensation. We are standing by and ready to help you. To schedule a free initial consultation with one of our sexual abuse attorneys, you can message us through our website or call us today at 919-821-7700.
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