Posts tagged Nursing Home Negligence

• Charitable Immunity is Unjust

  Ken Margolin | September 19, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Protecting charitable organizations from liability for the negligence of the organization or its employees, may sound noble, but is in fact, unfair. The immunity doesn't really accomplish its goals, and insures that employees of an organization involved in a personal injury lawsuit, will be sued instead of the organization. Here's the way it works in Massachusetts. By statute, M.G.L. c. 231,...

• Hospital Falls

  Ken Margolin | September 17, 2007 3:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Head & Brain Injuries
  

  A great deal of attention has been paid lately - rightfully so - to the subject of infections contracted in hospitals. Less focus has been placed on another source of serious and preventable injuries in hospitals - falls. The result of a fall down injury in a hospital may be severe. Patients are ill and often debilitated or disoriented to begin with. If a patient's condition presents any...

• Reported Physical Abuse in Nursing Homes Declines

  Ken Margolin | August 22, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Nursing Home & Elder Abuse
  

  There was some good news in a 2005 study from the National [Nursing Home] Ombudsman Reporting System ("NORS"). Complaints involving physical abuse in nursing homes decreased from 5,426 in 1998 to 4,137 in 2005. According to the report, complaints of nursing home physical abuse ranked 19th out of 128 categories of complaints relating to nursing home conditions.While any decline in numbers of...

• $160 Million Nursing Home Abuse Verdict

  Ken Margolin | August 02, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Nursing Home & Elder Abuse
  

  Corporate nursing home officials who bank on jurors discounting residents' injuries from nursing home abuse, because of their age or pre-existing illness, may think again after a $160 million dollar verdict in Texas. The victim of the abuse was an 81 year old resident of the Comanche Trail Nursing Home in Big Spring, Texas. Nursing home personnel assigned him a new roommate who was mentally ill...

• Failure to Communicate can be Deadly

  Ken Margolin | July 12, 2007 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Imagine a plane crash in which the co-pilot knew of another plane on a collision course, but decided not to tell the pilot, figuring he'd get the information on his own. Imagine a firefighter knowing a roof is about to collapse, but failing to warn his colleagues because he thought his colleagues were highly skilled and the signs of impending collapse were obvious. Unthinkable? Of course. Yet,...

• Sexual Abuse of Disabled Persons a Continuing Shame

  Ken Margolin | June 14, 2007 2:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Nursing Home & Elder Abuse
  

  Once again, a case of sexual abuse of disabled persons by a caretaker, is in the news. Wayne Albert Bleyle, pleaded guilty in San Diego, of molesting brain damaged children at Rady's Children's Hospital, where he had worked as a respiratory therapist. Bleyle had been charged in early 2006, and has been in jail since, on $5 million bail. The prosecutor, Laura Gunn, described the case as 'one of...

• Nursing Home Neglect Settlement

  Ken Margolin | June 07, 2007 2:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Nursing Home & Elder Abuse
  

  A significant settlement in a disturbing case of nursing home neglect, was reported in this week's Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. A generally healthy, active, older women (exact age unspecified in the report), entered the nursing home for rehabilitation after a compression fracture. Darvocet, which the woman was taking for pain, has a known side effect for many people, of constipation. Despite...

• Incidence of Nursing Home Abuse

  Ken Margolin | May 30, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Nursing Home & Elder Abuse
  

  Identifying just how much abuse occurs in nursing homes, is difficult. Victims are often unwilling or unable to speak up. Perpetrators may be nursing home staff, who have ongoing contact with the victim, and whose presence alone, may be intimidating. Nursing home assaults can be committed by a resident, when staff supervision is inadequate, lackadaisacal, or uncaring. It is almost certain,...

• Epidemic of Nursing Home Abuse Continues

  Ken Margolin | April 27, 2007 9:30 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Nursing Home & Elder Abuse
  

  Newspapers are printing an advance overview of a GAO (Government Accountability Office) report, due out next week. The GAO investigated nursing homes receiving Medicaid/Medicare payments, to see if incidences of nursing home abuse had lessened since a 1998 GAO report, targeting such disgraces. The new report is not encouraging. Even homes in which instances of shocking abuse occur, receive...

• Jury System Still Safe in Massachusetts

  Ken Margolin | April 10, 2007 2:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  I got a momentary scare the other day, when I read of a Supreme Judicial Court decision upholding a binding arbitration contract between a nursing home and the son of an elderly parent admitted to the home. Binding arbitration agreements require that if there is a dispute between the parties, resort to the courts and juries is waived in favor of submission to a professional arbitrator. The case...