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INJURIES CAUSED BY NURSING HOME ABUSE / NEGLECT

Causes of Injuries in Nursing Homes: The nursing facilities understaffing (e.g., four CNAs scheduled per shift to provide personal care assistance to 35-40 residents) results in the CNA’s inability to promptly respond to a bedridden patient’s bell or buzzer call for one- or two-person assistance in using a restroom, taking a shower, or getting out of the bed. 

All nursing home residents shall have: 

  • A call light within reach at all times. 

  • A nurse's call station nearby to respond to resident's needs such as toileting, bathing, and dressing.  

  • Fresh drinking water within reach at all times. 

Inexperienced and untrained nurses and other staff members cause or significantly contribute to cause residents’ injuries by:

  • Abusive Care: physical violence and sexual abuse.

  • Falls: slip-and-fall while resident’s walking or when the residents are dropped to the floor by the CNAs or nurses

 

Inexperienced and untrained nurses and other staff members cause or significantly contribute to cause residents’ injuries by:

  • Bed rail entrapment: a resident’s leg or arm are broken due to their entrapment between the bars of a single bed rail, the mattress and bed rail, the headboard, foot board, mattress and bed rail so to cause death, strangulation or suffocation when head or neck becomes entrapped, and fractures of trapped limbs.

Inexperienced and untrained nurses and other staff members cause or significantly contribute to cause residents’ injuries by:

  • Improper physical restraint (with excessive force) or chemical (to control aggressive patients) restraint leading to strangulation, bone fractures, face/ head injuries of frail and disoriented residents due to understaffed, unsupervised and negligently trained employees.

Inexperienced and untrained nurses and other staff members cause or significantly contribute to cause residents’ injuries by:

  • Self-choking on food.

  • Systematic urinary tract infection affecting the kidneys and other infections.

  • Neglect in delaying diapers’ replacement so exacerbate the resident’s incontinence problem as the patients sitting in urine, feces or wet clothing / bedding develop skin deterioration and pressure sores.

Nursing home residents often die from COVID-19 because the facilities:

  • Are shorthanded as employees have gotten sick or quit out of fear of constant exposure. 

  • Conduct no new employee orientation and give inadequate training.

  • Provide no personal protection equipment (gowns, respirators, gloves…) to the staff.

  • Cannot attract and retain the qualified personnel for low-wage and high-stress jobs.

  • Do not report to the government that the facility is understaffed.

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