Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect

Nursing homes in San Bernardino County and throughout Southern California must comply with state and federal laws concerning resident care. Those laws require nursing homes to provide a particular level of care based on the resident’s needs, to comply with residents’ rights, and to ensure a certain level of safety at the facility. In recent years, questions and concerns about transparency in nursing homes have become particularly important as residents have experienced injuries due to nursing home abuse and neglect, have been transferred unlawfully to hospice facilities, and have been evicted for inexplicable reasons. 

As of January 1, 2024, a new law is in effect that requires nursing homes to provide detailed information to residents upon eviction. Our San Bernardino County nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers can tell you more.

Risk of Forcible Discharge or Eviction at California Nursing Homes

Many different types of injuries can be warning signs of nursing home abuse or neglect in San Bernardino County and throughout Southern California. Burn injuries are one type of injury that can signal physical abuse or passive neglect, depending upon the burn injury and how the nursing home resident sustained it. While burn injuries may not be quite as common as certain other types of harm reported in nursing homes (such as bed sores, for example), burn injuries do occur, and the facility and other parties could be liable. Our San Bernardino nursing home neglect attorneys can tell you more about elderly burn injuries and how they can be symptoms of abuse or neglect in Southern California nursing facilities.

Learning More About Burn Injuries in the Elderly

Older adults in nursing homes can be more susceptible to burn injuries, and burn injuries can be more problematic in older patients, as well. Indeed, as Wolters Kluwer underscores, “older adults are more prone to burn injury and are also more likely to develop complications after the injury.” In addition, “treatment outcomes are overall worse for older compared with younger adults,” and “the incidence of burn injuries in older adults is increasing.” In addition to physical harm, burn injuries can also have psychological consequences, and it can be difficult for older adults to recover from serious burn injuries.

Staff at nursing homes and assisted living facilities often discuss being overworked, feeling burnt out, and being employed at facilities where they do not earn enough money to stay engaged in their jobs. When employees at nursing homes and assisted living facilities feel overworked, underappreciated, and burnt out, the overall quality of their work can suffer, which can ultimately have a negative effect on the residents of these facilities for whom those workers provide the necessary care. Could an increase in wages for workers at nursing homes and assisted living facilities reduce the incidents of nursing home neglect or nursing home negligence in Southern California? 

According to a recent article in McKnight’s Senior Living, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed new legislation into law that will increase the minimum wage for workers at nursing homes and assisted living facilities to $25 per hour. Our Riverside County nursing home negligence lawyers want to discuss the potential impact of the increase in pay on residents at these facilities throughout the state.

Details of the Newly Signed Legislation

Having an elderly loved one in a nursing home or assisted living facility in San Diego County can be stressful, especially when there is so much news coverage about abuse and neglect impacting residents at these types of facilities. There are also many different forms of elder abuse, which can make it difficult for family members and friends to have the information they need about a particular kind of abuse. Our San Diego nursing home neglect attorneys can give you more information. The following are some of the most important things to know about passive neglect.

Passive Neglect is Not Usually Intentional

The term “passive neglect” refers to a type of elder abuse where a resident of a nursing home or assisted living facility does not receive the type or amount of care they need, but it is not usually intentional. The National Council on Aging (NCOA) defines passive neglect as “a caregiver’s failure to provide an older adult with life’s necessities, including, but not limited to, food, clothing, shelter, or medical care.” Passive neglect frequently occurs when a nursing home is understaffed.

Do nursing homes in San Bernardino County and elsewhere in Southern California have enough staff members to prevent resident injuries due to negligence? Nursing homes have a duty to provide residents with the specific types of care they need, and when a facility is understaffed and a resident suffers an injury as a result of the understaffing, the facility may be liable. According to a recent report in The New York Times, federal officials have proposed new rules for increasing the number of staff members at nursing homes throughout the country. How do the newly proposed standards compare with current requirements in California? And what should you do if you believe an elderly loved one at a nursing home suffered serious or deadly injuries due to neglect and understaffing?

Our San Bernardino County nursing home neglect lawyers are here to help, and we can tell you more.

Learning More About the Newly Proposed Federal Rules

Do nursing homes in Los Angeles County have the capacity to provide appropriate care to residents with mental illnesses, or are facilities that house large populations of residents with mental illnesses more likely to be sites where injuries arise out of nursing home negligence? According to a recent KQED podcast, while nursing homes are typically thought of as spaces for older adults who need assistance with care due to physical incapacitation or cognitive impairment, “a new LAist investigation finds that thousands of people with serious mental illness are living in California’s nursing homes,” and it could potentially be a violation of federal law. In addition, nursing homes with high rates of residents with mental illness could put other residents at risk of abuse or could take necessary care time away from residents who need assistance with various activities of daily living (ADLs).

What should you know about mental illness and nursing home negligence in Southern California? Our Los Angeles nursing home neglect lawyers can tell you more. 

Nursing Homes Not Designed to Care for Residents With Serious Mental Illness

Many nursing home residents in Orange County and throughout Southern California, as well as at assisted living facilities in the area, require help with activities of daily living (or ADLs). Activities of daily living include things like getting dressed, bathing, using the bathroom, and eating. Help with ADLs does not need to be provided by a nurse, but families should be able to expect that their elderly loved ones will have the assistance with these activities that they need at any nursing home or assisted living facility in Orange County. When a facility is negligent or when an employee fails to adequately assist a resident with one of these ADLs, the resident can suffer serious and sometimes life-threatening injuries. When it comes to eating, there is a serious risk of choking among older adults who need assistance.

What do you need to know about choking hazards among older adults and facility liability for these injuries? Our Orange County nursing home neglect attorneys can say more. 

Choking Hazards and Older Adults

Nursing home abuse and neglect in Orange County is more common than many people think, and some studies estimate that it impacts 10% or more of older adults. Indeed, according to the National Council on Aging (NCOA), one out of every 10 people aged 60 and older suffers some type of abuse each year, and some studies suggest that only about one out of every 24 cases of elder abuse is actually reported, which could mean that the rates of abuse and neglect are significantly higher than what we already know. Some signs of abuse or neglect may be more obvious than others, such as physical bruises or cuts or reports made by seniors who have experienced abuse. Yet as an article in U.S. News & World Report intimates, it is always important to think about signs and symptoms of abuse that may not be as obvious or transparent. Often, the way to learn about some of these issues is to ask questions. Our Orange County nursing home neglect lawyers can tell you more.

When Nursing Home Abuse is Not Transparent

The article in U.S. News & World Report emphasizes that, more often than you might anticipate, “there are harsh secrets in nursing homes” that frequently include “resident neglect or abuse.” As that piece underscores, the COVID-19 pandemic worsened safety and health issues that were already present in many nursing homes in California and across the country as those facilities failed to implement effective infection control measures or to address the effects of isolation and emotional neglect. Yet often, these kinds of issues will only be known to prospective residents or to current residents’ family members if they ask. 

Nursing homes must have enough employees to provide sufficient care to residents. When skilled nursing facilities do not have enough employees to attend to the needs of all residents, the nursing home may be understaffed. It is important to know that understaffing can result in resident injuries and can be the cause of nursing home neglect, for which the facility may be liable. A nursing home or its employees do not need to engage in intentional acts of abuse or neglect for the facility to be liable. Rather, “passive neglect,” or unintentional neglect resulting from understaffing that results in injuries, can mean that the facility is legally responsible. Our San Diego County nursing home neglect attorneys can say more.

Staffing Requirements at Nursing Homes

In Southern California and throughout the state, nursing homes have a duty to have sufficient employees to provide care to the residents at the facility. Skilled nursing facilities must employ enough people to ensure that residents receive the attention and care they need and to ensure that residents do not suffer harm as a result of a lack of necessary attention or care. 

“Cost-cutting is to be expected in any business, but nursing homes are particularly vulnerable. Staffing often represents the largest operating cost on a nursing home’s ledger. So, when firms buy a home, they cut staff. However, this business model has a fatal flaw. “Nurse availability,” Gupta and his colleagues wrote, “is the most important determinant of quality of care.”

“The data revealed a troubling trend: when private-equity firms acquired nursing homes, deaths among residents increased by an average of ten per cent.”

Read this compelling article from the New Yorker.

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