Can a Nursing Home Be Sued if a Patient Gets Bedsores?

Any Nursing home in the United States of America can be sued for neglect or bed sores if the facility does not provide the high-quality care and attention that patients expect and deserve. In fact, as more people are moving to assisted living facilities, the lawsuits being filed against these facilities are becoming more common.

However, suing assisted living facilities might be challenging because you need to know what constitutes neglect and the relevant legal steps you need to take. To make the process easier, you may need to consult an attorney who is familiar with medical malpractice, bedsore lawsuits, and other cases where healthcare facilities are sued.

What constitutes neglect?

Neglect in assisted living facilities is essentially failing to provide a patient with the services or care they need to be free from pain or harm. It is also described as a failure to react to a potentially dangerous situation, resulting in a patient being harmed or anxious. Some common signs of neglect in these institutions include unexpected weight loss, dehydration or malnutrition of the patient, and unclean conditions of the patient, the bed, or the room.

Bedsores

These wounds are an obvious sign of neglect. They are formed when a patient who is unable to move, is left in the same position without being moved for a long time. If left untreated, they can cause additional medical conditions like inflammation of tissue, bacteria entering the bloodstream, abscess, cancer, or infections of the bone.

If you suspect a patient may have these injuries, you can look for signs like a visible open sore, redness in the affected areas, swelling of the skin, and skin that is hot or tender to the touch.

These injuries can be prevented and the caregivers from assisted living facilities need to take the right steps to prevent putting patients through such pain and discomfort. For instance, the caregivers can prevent these injuries by regularly repositioning the patient and by using special devices to support the patient.

Furthermore, maintaining good hygiene and skin care can prevent injuries from forming. Skincare entails regularly checking the patient’s skin for any signs of discoloration and using high-quality moisturizing products to prevent dryness. In addition, patients who are physically able to move can avoid getting these injuries by remaining active.

Suing the assisted living facility

Patients who are not properly cared for can develop bedsores found from nursing home abuse. These injuries can cause infection or even death in rare cases. In such instances, the patients or their loved ones can file a lawsuit against the facility. Some of the legal claims that may arise include medical malpractice, neglect, and wrongful death.

Conclusion

According to federal regulations, doctors and residents must provide a certain standard of care to the patients in these facilities. If they do not provide the stipulated standards of care by failing to reposition an immobile patient, failing to provide proper hygiene to them, and by not giving adequate wound care and supervision, they may be sued for medical malpractice, neglect, or wrongful death depending on the particular case being filed against them.