Articles Posted in Nursing Home Negligence

Earlier this month in California, the family of a woman who died while in the care of a skilled nursing facility filed suit against the facility, claiming that the negligent care their loved one received while at the facility led to her early death. According to one local news source, the lawsuit alleges that the nursing home did not meet the state-mandated requirement for staff member-to-patient ratio, which was a major cause of the inadequate care.

Evidently, the elderly woman had lived at the facility for the three years prior to her death. About a month before her death, the woman suffered a serious fall and broke her hip. Her family was not notified, and she was not taken to the hospital until the next day. The woman remained hospitalized afterwards and died about a month later.

The woman’s family claims that the facility failed to create a proper care plan for their loved one, whom the nursing home staff knew suffered from seizures. They also claimed that the nursing home did not properly train staff, failed to monitor high-risk patients, and failed to report any discovered violations to the state.

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Earlier this month in Portland, Oregon, a man filed a lawsuit against a nursing home where he had previously resided, seeking $9 million in damages. According to one local Oregon news source, the allegations are that the nursing home’s negligent care led to a situation where the man’s penis needed to be amputated, due to an advanced kidney infection that spread to the man’s penis.

Evidently, the man was initially admitted to the nursing home to recover for a kidney infection. However, while he was there, he began to suffer from what he believed was an infection in his catheter. He notified nursing home staff members, but they allegedly failed to take his complaints seriously. Over time, the infection led to gangrene and eventually life-threatening septic shock. Ultimately, the man’s penis needed to be amputated as a result of the infection.

The lawsuit, which names the nursing home facility as well as the two individual nurses who were responsible for the man’s care, seeks $9 million in damages. Included in this figure is an amount of $1 million for the man’s wife for the loss of “affection society, assistance and companionship of her husband.”

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Earlier this month, the family of a 57-year-old woman who died after lighting herself aflame filed suit against the nursing facility that was charged with her care. According to one local news article, the lawsuit is against the single largest owner of skilled nursing facilities in the State of California. The owner of the facility controls one in every 14 nursing home beds in California.

Evidently, the woman suffered from a history of schizophrenia and suicidal ideations, and she was admitted to the nursing home for constant care. The lawsuit alleges that the nursing facility accepted her into its care, knowing that it did not have the trained staff necessary to provide the high level of care that the woman needed. Specifically, the woman’s family claims that the home was “maximizing profits from the operation of the facility by underfunding, understaffing and under training the staff” with “callous indifference to the potential for injury they were inflicting upon the resident population.”

The family argues that the home provided the woman a “day pass” that allowed her to be on her own for about four hours a day without supervision of any kind. This was despite the fact that, just two weeks earlier, staff members reported the woman was suffering from hallucinations and talking to herself.

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Earlier last month, the State of California cited and fined a nursing home facility after it was determined that lapses in care at the facility led to the death of a resident. According to one local news source, the facility was fined $100,000 and issued a Class “AA” Citation, which is the most serious in the State.

Evidently, last July one of the home’s residents choked on a piece of food while eating in the home’s dining area. The woman ultimately suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away a few days after the incident. After an official investigation, it was determined that the actions of the nursing home in failing to provide adequate supervision played a major role in the woman’s death.

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) initiated an official investigation after the woman’s death, and it determined “the facility failed to provide a safe dining experience and failed to implement their care plan to consistently assist and assure that safe eating occurred.” The CDPH also told reporters that the woman had a known history of delusional thought and difficulty swallowing, and she was known to attempt to eat quickly without properly chewing her food.

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Earlier this month, a New Jersey nursing home located in Paramus settled a lawsuit that was filed by the family of a woman who allegedly choked to death while under the care of the defendant nursing home. According to one local news report, the deceased was an 85-year-old Navy veteran who was eating his breakfast when he choked to death.

Court documents filed by the man’s attorney claim that the resident was left alone during breakfast, despite the known fact that he suffered from a swallowing disorder. In fact, according to the man’s family, the nursing home was under specific instructions to have an employee watch their loved one carefully as he ate.

Two weeks after this incident, another resident choked to death. Apparently, a nursing home employee walked in the man’s room to see him choking. The employee performed the Heimlich maneuver but was too late, and the man passed away. When the state inspector arrived, nursing home management told him that they believed the man had died due to heart failure, even though the patient’s death certificate listed “acute airway obstruction” as the official cause of death.

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Earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed by the son of a woman who passed away while in the care of a skilled nursing facility, alleging that the care provided to his mother in her final hours contributed to his mother’s early death. According to one local news source, the 82-year-old woman was admitted to the nursing facility with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, type-2 diabetes, hypertension, aspiration pneumonia, and dysphagia.

According to the woman’s son, his mother was admitted to the facility on June 5, 2013. Upon admission, the facility was given orders to make sure that the woman had her scheduled feedings through a gastrostomy tube and that the tube was to be routinely checked for residual amounts of formula in her stomach. However, according to the lawsuit, “there is no indication in the initial care plan that respiration precautions were specifically addressed or that prevention guidelines were established.”

According to court documents, the day after her admission to the facility, a nurse documented that the woman was pale, wheezing, and in bed with her eyes closed. Two hours later, that same nurse came back to check on the woman and noticed that she had elevated blood pressure. The nurse provided the woman with oxygen, elevated her head, and stopped the woman’s feeding tube. A few moments later, the elderly woman became unresponsive. The primary nurse was told to call for an ambulance. After a few minutes passed by, another nurse inquired as to where the ambulance was, and it turned out that the primary nurse had not called 911 but instead called the non-emergency line and been given an approximate wait time of one hour.

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