A nursing home is supposed to be a place where your loved ones can receive the adequate care they deserve when they become too old to take care of themselves. As such, nursing homes are meant to be held to a high standard. This includes being equipped with professional, caring staff who have the skills and desire to provide the best care to their residents.
However, sometimes this isn’t the case, causing nursing home abuse. Sometimes this abuse may be intentional, or unintentional. We’ll look at ways nursing home abuse can manifest and the reasons it does.
Forms of Nursing Home Abuse
Nursing home abuse can take many forms and it may not always be physical. Some examples may include:
- Overall Neglect or Inadequate Care: Many residents may be neglected or be given inadequate care. This can manifest in not being given the right medication, not being fully clean, not having adequate nutrition or overall lack of attention.
- Physical Abuse: Sadly some residents may suffer from physical abuse such as cuts or bruises. As the body gets older it can take longer for the body to heal. This means that a little roughness or an accident that could have easily been prevented may take longer to heal.
- Financial Abuse: There are cases where residents are robbed either by the staff or the facility as a whole. These cases can be as simple as a worker lifting some cash out of a resident’s purse or can be more heinous like the facility funneling money out the resident’s bank account.
For a legal consultation with a personal injury lawyer, call 434-817-3100
Reasons Why Nursing Home Abuse Takes Place
Unfortunately, sometimes there are workers or a nursing home as a whole that actively seek to cause their residents harm. Whether physically, financially, or emotionally. However, these are often the exception and not the rule. Instead, nursing home abuse often happens due to two reasons: lack of staffing and inadequate training. In many ways, both reasons go hand-in-hand.
Although providing care to elderly residents requires a lot of skills and patience, unfortunately, many nursing homes underpay their staff. Not only can this result in workers being unmotivated, but it also means that nursing homes can have huge turnovers.
Additionally, instead of nursing homes seeking talented nurses with plenty of experience, they may instead opt for workers who don’t have the necessary experience and qualifications. Many nursing homes may even outsource their staffing to contractors.
These two factors can result in a workforce that doesn’t have the proper training for handling tasks such as administering the correct dosages of medicine or doesn’t have experience working with elderly patients. Compounded with having to pick up the slack of missing employees, many nursing home abuse cases simply arise from unintentional reasons.
However, even if a worker didn’t intentionally cause their resident harm, when there are clear signs of abuse, having a personal injury lawyer to represent your loved one should always be a top priority. Our friends at Therman Law Offices, LTD have qualified attorneys ready to help.
Call 434-817-3100 or complete a Case Evaluation form
