Nursing homes and residential care facilities are often utilized by individuals who cannot take care of themselves. As residents of these facilities, they may receive necessary medical support, assistance with performing daily tasks, and have their days managed by individuals who are paid to see that their needs are met. However, for an alarming number of Pennsylvanians, and individuals throughout the rest of the country, nursing and care homes fail in their duties to provide safety and support, and end up inflicting pain and suffering upon those they are charged to attend.
There are a myriad of reasons that nursing homes fail in their duties to provide for their residents. They may suffer from too few staff members to effectively meet the needs of all of their residents, or they may operate facilities that are poorly maintained and that pose dangers to those who reside within their walls.
In some cases, nursing home administrators may be deaf to the complaints and concerns of their residents or may fail to follow through on necessary changes that the loved ones of their residents request to improve the conditions the residents must live in. Though regulatory bodies can, and do, inspect licensed nursing homes, these inspections may be too infrequent, or lack the comprehensiveness needed to reveal the true dangers that the facilities pose to those who live in them.
A nursing home should be a place where a person receives support to live his or her best life. In too many cases, nursing home abuse and neglect send innocent victims to the hospital, and can also result in victims’ deaths. For readers who have concerns about the nursing homes where their loved ones live, help is available. Attorneys are good resources for consultation to learn more about this upsetting form of personal injury law.
Source: dailynews.com, “Even tightly scrutinized nursing homes are often still treacherous,” Jordan Rau, July 8, 2017