CASSELBERRY NURSING HOME NEGLECT LAWYERS AND ATTORNEYS DEDICATED TO PROTECTING THE ELDERLY

Deciding to move an elderly family member to a nursing home is a complicated, emotional decision. After all, you are entrusting the care of a loved one to staff at a nursing home and you are hoping they will provide high quality care. Unfortunately, many families find their trust is misplaced and their hopes are not met.

The corporations that own and operate nursing homes and assisted living facilities generally put profit over people and, as a result, patients are not always cared for properly. Close to 90 percent of all U.S. nursing homes are understaffed, so patients do not receive the care they need, staff are undertrained or not trained at all, and patients get hurt and abused. Sadly, an estimated 2.1 million U.S. seniors are victims of nursing home abuse or negligence each year.

If you have a family member who has been a victim of nursing home negligence, the Casselberry nursing home neglect attorneys at Warner & Warner can help you hold the nursing home or assisted living facility accountable and help you obtain the justice you deserve. We formerly defended nursing homes in legal cases, so we are very familiar with the strategies they use to fight lawsuits. After choosing to fight for victims of nursing home neglect instead, we now have years of successful experience suing nursing homes and winning cases for our clients. Let us put our experience and knowledge in this area to work helping you get answers and the justice that is rightfully yours.

What Are the Signs of Nursing Home Negligence?

Harmful negligence can occur when nursing home staff forget or do not have time to provide necessary care and treatment. However, It can also take the form of careless, abusive lifting, hitting, and moving of patients.

Any kind of patient neglect can cause injury and suffering, but the result is especially egregious in nursing homes, where the threat of serious injury is compounded by the fact that the patients are elderly and cannot communicate well enough to tell family members about their suffering.  Too often abusive neglect goes unnoticed until it is too late for the patient to recover.

Knowing the signs of neglect is, therefore, very important. These signs include:

• Decreased mobility
• Dehydration
• Malnutrition
• Bed sores and other skin conditions
• Poor personal hygiene
• Unsanitary conditions
• Broken bones
• Unexplained or frequently occurring bruises and cuts
• Continual sedation
• Unsanitary conditions
• Poor personal hygiene

Behavioral changes, such as seeming unusually depressed, angry, or fearful, or frequent rocking, mumbling, or sucking can also be signs of neglect or abuse.

What Are the Grounds for a Florida Nursing Home Negligence Lawsuit?

If a loved one has been injured because of nursing home negligence, you may be able to recover damages for your loved one’s pain, suffering, medical expenses, and other damages by filing a civil suit against the nursing home. The grounds for such a lawsuit might be:

• Understaffing: If a nursing home is understaffed, patients may be neglected because there is no one available to care for them or because staff members are overworked and stressed. If a patient suffers an injury due to understaffing, the nursing home can be held liable for the injury.
• Negligent Hiring: Nursing homes are obligated to hire qualified personnel with the academic degrees required for the positions they are hired for and with no record of abuse or violence. If a nursing home hires unqualified staff and does not conduct background checks, they are putting their patients at risk and can be held liable for negligence.
• Inadequate Training: In some cases, nursing home employees are not properly trained to handle disabled or disobedient residents, so they may provide substandard care. If inadequate staff training results in a patient being seriously injured, the nursing home can be held liable.
• Medication Errors: Medications are an important part of care for most nursing home patients. If they are not given the right medication or dosage, they could suffer serious consequences. If this happens, the healthcare provider, pharmacy, or pharmacist can be held liable for negligence.
• Third-Party Responsibility: Nursing homes have a duty to provide a safe environment for their patients, so they can be held liable for injuries caused by third parties within the facility. For example, if a patient is injured by another patient or a guest at the facility, the nursing home is legally responsible if they failed to provide adequate security to prevent such an incident.

Getting support and legal advice from lawyers experienced in handling nursing home negligence cases is important when a loved one has been injured due to negligent nursing home care. The highly skilled Casselberry attorneys at Warner & Warner will help you understand your rights under Florida law and do everything possible to hold the responsible parties accountable for their negligence.

Why Selecting an Experienced Casselberry Nursing Home Negligence Lawyer Is Important

Many Florida attorneys who say they are nursing home negligence attorneys actually have little or no experience suing nursing homes, and experience truly matters in these complicated cases. When selecting a lawyer to sue a nursing home, you need to be sure to ask about their experience and choose an attorney with knowledge of the tactics nursing homes use to defend themselves and a track record of success in suing nursing homes.

In contrast to most Florida personal injury attorneys, the lawyers of Warner & Warner have decades of experience defending and suing nursing homes. Our Casselberry nursing home neglect attorneys have handled hundreds of nursing home cases in Florida and know how to successfully challenge the huge companies that own and control the nursing homes.

If a family member has been injured due to negligence at a nursing home, please get the legal help you need to hold the negligent parties accountable by calling Warner & Warner at 321.972.1889 or submitting the “Do I Have a Case?” form on our website.

Sources

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (30 Nov. 2018). CMS strengthens nursing home oversight and safety to ensure adequate staffing.
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-strengthens-nursing-home-oversight-and-safety-ensure-adequate-staffing

Florida Health Care Association. (2017). Facts about long term care in Florida.
http://www.fhca.org/media_center/long_term_health_care_facts