Nursing Home Negligence

We don't expect our loved ones to be abused by their caretakers. We expect them to be treated with dignity by professionals who have their best interests at heart and work hard to care for them. Unfortunately, nursing home negligence and elder abuse are not uncommon in Florida. Many licensed care facilities do not have enough staff, and understaffing can lead to inadequate treatment. There are other nursing homes that are willfully negligent, causing serious or fatal injuries. Based in Ocala, the nursing home negligence attorneys at the Dean Law Firm can help you seek justice for your loved one and pursue compensation on their behalf.

Sometimes a loved one gets hurt or sick in spite of diligent care by a nursing home. However, there are some telltale signs of neglect or abuse in Florida and elsewhere. These include bedsores, dehydration or malnutrition, infection, or slip and falls. If a loved one under the care of a nursing home shows these signs, gets seriously hurt, or dies, you may be able to recover damages through a negligence lawsuit.

To recover damages, you would need to show that the facility owed your loved one a duty of care and breached that duty with some negligent or reckless action or failure to act. You also would have to prove that this breach led directly to the harm that your relative suffered and that quantifiable damages were incurred as a result.

Nursing homes and their employees owe residents a duty to use reasonable care and have an obligation to protect their residents under both state and federal law. Understaffing, inadequate training, or hiring personnel who are not qualified can lead to a breach of duty and a failure to use reasonable care. The average staff-to-resident ratio, according to the Centers for Disease Control, is one staff member to 1.64 residents. A nursing home's failure to keep a proper ratio or to perform background checks can lead to untenable situations, with patients bearing the brunt of this mismanagement.

Causes of injury can include failure to protect residents from falls, failure to provide them with daily hygiene, medication errors, and failure to monitor patients. For example, if nursing home staff fail to turn a bedridden resident to avoid bedsores or fail to provide regular baths, the resident may develop infections, which can in turn lead to medical complications and even death. Elderly residents are more susceptible to serious infections and injuries than younger people.

Available damages for nursing home negligence cases include compensation for medical bills, disability, disfigurement, and pain and suffering. If the nursing home's actions were especially egregious, you may be able to recover punitive damages to deter this facility and others from engaging in similar conduct.

If an elderly resident dies as a result of nursing home negligence, his or her family can bring a wrongful death lawsuit. Different relatives have different degrees of priority in filing this type of claim.

If your loved one has suffered from nursing home negligence or abuse in The Villages or the surrounding area, the injury lawyers at the Dean Law Firm will work diligently on behalf of you and your loved one to pursue justice and fair compensation for any resulting harm. We also handle wrongful death claims. Call 352-387-8700 or use our contact form to schedule an initial consultation with our firm. We represent clients in Marion, Sumter, Lake, Citrus, and Levy Counties, as well as other regions of Florida.