Are you suspecting nursing home negligence? There is a chance that you may be able to file a claim to protect your loved one. It is a terribly difficult situation to have to put your parent in a nursing home and entrust that others would care for them as you might.
Suspecting Nursing Home Negligence | Signs of Abuse
Neglect and abuse can take many forms. It can be as obvious as bruising or less obvious such as bed sores that you must do some investigation because those areas are often the ones that are hidden from you. It can be as sudden as malnutrition and for those residents that can’t communicate that well, they are suffering silently because of mental abuse, being yelled at, scrutinized, ignored, and oftentimes residents who cannot get into the bathroom; one type of neglect is by having them wet themselves or not being able to change the bedding in a timelier manner.
We have complaints of residents who simply press the buzzer non-stop and not get any response to come and take care of their needs, get them to the bathroom, or to provide clean up. A friend or family member can look for these signs and notice the quality of the care. Are the sheets clean? Talk to your loved ones about what’s been going on. If they can’t communicate with you, look for the signs that are unspoken. Check for signs of abuse, check for bruising, check for bed sores, especially if a person has been previously interactive with you and is now despondent.
Oftentimes, communication skills may wane in their older years which means that our investigative skills need to be much more than acute.
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Suspecting Nursing Home Negligence | Collecting Evidence
Like all evidence if it’s not collected quickly it can disappear or fade because we are often trying to protect people who are older and may not have same memory skills, they had twenty years earlier. Documenting what you’ve witness or what these people have told you can be critically important.
Use your cellphone for photographs, use notepads and pens to take notes, to record dates and times. Oftentimes, a calendar could help because it might help refresh the memory of a person you are trying to assess when recalling what happened and when. Recording devices such as cellphones or a tape recorder can be critically important for somebody who is older or who may have some lucid moments and then some senile moments, you want to be able to capture the evidence of the person who has suffered while you can.
If the nursing home knows that you are on top of things, that you’ve documented what you have already witnessed, you are putting them on notice and writing them enough, will oftentimes have them attempt to remedy the situation because they understand that they are now being looked at closely by the family. Make sure that you preserved any of this evidence including copies of any letters or notices.
We have several cases that have come unfortunately after the fact, when the love one has already passed and those clients have told us how they wish they could have taken out their cellphone and just taken a recording of what their mother or father had told them while they were still able to.
If you are suspecting nursing home negligence, please call our Buffalo attorneys today for a free consultation.