Texas Nursing Home Abuse

Assisted Living Abuse / Neglect Attorney

When you place your trust in the hands of a caregiver at a Texas nursing home, you expect nothing but the best care possible for your loved one. While many caregivers provide necessary care and attention, there are some who choose to neglect the needs of loved ones. The last thing you should have to worry about is whether or not your loved one is receiving proper care and attention. You should be able to trust Texas nursing home workers and expect them to treat your loved one with the same care and respect as you and your family would provide. If you or a loved one is faced with injury or loss because of someone else’s negligent actions, you need somebody on your side to help you stand up for your rights. The Texas nursing home abuse lawyers at the law offices of Daniel Stark are committed to helping those who are victims of Texas nursing home abuse.

Look for Signs of Abuse

The easiest way to learn about abuse or neglect is to talk with your loved one. Sometimes someone may be too uncomfortable to talk about abuse, so ask specific questions and look for physical signs of abuse if you are concerned about his or her safety.

If he or she mentions being neglected or abused, look for some of the common physical signs of nursing home abuse and neglect. Common signs of Texas nursing home abuse include open wounds, cuts, bruises, or welts; untreated bedsores; torn clothing or broken personal items; fecal/urine odors; excessive and sudden weight loss; fleas, lice, or dirt on the resident or in resident’s room; bruises in a pattern that would suggest restraints; abnormally pale complexion; and poor personal hygiene.

Common signs of a careless staff include lack of proper heating or cooling in the nursing home, caregiver allowing the resident to wander off the premises, caregiver’s inability to explain the resident’s condition, caregiver’s refusal to allow visitors to see the resident alone, and sudden change in the resident’s medication.

In addition, keep records of possible abuse by taking photographs of injuries or unsuitable living conditions and by writing detailed notes about your loved one’s healthcare routine, medications, and anything you see out of the ordinary.

We Can Help

With three offices located in Dallas/Fort Worth, Bryan/College Station, and Waco, Texas, we can conveniently serve people across the entire state of Texas. When you choose to call on Daniel Stark, know that we’ll strive to provide you with personal attention throughout your Texas injury or accident case. From keeping you aware of what we find in our thorough investigation of your case to updating you on the status of potential settlements and case proceedings, our team of professionals will make your interests our priority.

---

Why Does Nursing Home Neglect Occur?

The conditions in a typical nursing home create an environment that makes it easy for neglect to occur. Several factors create this type of environment:

1. The characteristics of the nursing home population.
2. The method by which nursing homes are paid.
3. The quality of the staff in most nursing homes.

[back to top]

---

How Are Most Nursing Homes Paid?

Eighty percent of the nursing homes in Texas are paid under Medicaid. The Medicaid system is a flat-rate reimbursement system. That means that each nursing home is paid essentially the same amount for all qualified residents who fall into specific categories of care, regardless of the actual cost required to provide the care.

The negative consequence of this system is that because profitability is directly related to the cost of resident care, there is no financial incentive to provide care that goes beyond the amount reimbursable by Medicaid. Therefore, it is not uncommon for a facility to ignore the needs of a patient in a given month in order to protect profits. This drive to save money in order to increase profitability encourages poor maintenance and cutbacks on essential medical supplies. For example, a legal investigator in Mississippi found a nursing home that ran out of soap on the 25th of every month and the soap was not replenished until the first of the month. Instances such as these are only becoming more commonplace as more and more sole proprietors, who provide more one—on—one personal care, are selling out to corporate chains that care more about their profits than their elderly residents.

[back to top]

---

What about the Quality of Staff?

Due to the budgetary concerns, nursing homes are faced with the basic difficulty of hiring and retaining an adequate staff. A particular problem is with those employees involved in direct patient care. The work is not glamorous and the pay is not competitive. Therefore, nursing homes do not attract many highly skilled nurses away from the higher paying hospital positions. As a result, the facilities are often forced to hire minimum wage employees to care for their most important asset—their elderly residents.

Virtually all of the care is provided by nurses’ aides who are not adequately trained, who are underpaid, and who receive few, if any, job benefits. These lower paid nurses’ aides are plagued with frequent absenteeism and high turnover, as well as lack of education, training, and skills.

It is essential that nursing home facilities have adequate staff to care for their patients. As a result, often the nursing homes are forced to quickly hire positions without performing necessary background checks. In fact, it is not uncommon to find that a large percentage of the nurses’ aides have criminal convictions. Texas law allows all nursing facilities to obtain criminal background checks on their employees. Failure to investigate this history and consequently employing a criminal results in clear violation of Texas law.

The law also requires that each patient have a medical doctor (MD) or doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) who is his or her attending physician. These doctors are in short supply for many of the same reasons the certified nurses are in short supply. The job is not glamorous, and they can find higher paying jobs in other medical areas of expertise. The Medicaid reimbursement plan assures each doctor that he or she will get paid for his or her services. However, this system pays such a low fee that unless the doctor has a substantial group of residents in a nursing home, the doctor will actually lose money by making the visits to the nursing facility residents. Therefore, residents are denied the personal attention they may desperately need. Due to the residents’ fragile conditions, inattentive medical care can result in dire consequences.

[back to top]

---

What Are the Basic Problems with the Nursing Care System?

For all residents, the nursing facility is expected to be both a home and a hospital. Providers must meet all of these demands in the face of increasing reluctance by Congress and state agencies to adequately fund, through Medicaid, the costs involved with a higher standard of resident care. Although the above problems do not prevent all nursing homes from providing a good environment and quality care, abuse leading to injury or death still commonly occurs.

Most cases revolve around unintentional acts caused by inadequate care and supervision. Most negligence claims against nursing homes stem from injuries that occur when residents wander away or fall. A variety of situations cause other injuries. These include:

1. Decubitus ulcers (bedsores) and resulting complications including gangrene

2. Malnutrition from underfeeding or improper nutrition

3. Depression and stress stemming from abrupt moves (transfer trauma) or improper use of restraints

4. Scalding from boiling bath water or thermal blanket burns

5. Institutional epidemics such as food poisoning

[back to top]

---

What Are Some Recent Cases?

Typical examples of Texas nursing home abuse include a blind American veteran admitted into a nursing home who died 35 days later of gangrene-infested bedsores. In another instance, a nurses’ aide placed an elderly woman in a tub of scalding bath water. Instead of summoning a doctor, the aide wrapped the woman in sheets to hide her wounds. The woman died a few days later from her injuries. Finally, one Texas case involved a patient who was a known wanderer. The patient left the facility through an unlocked door, crossed a highway, and was struck by a motorcycle.

What Can Litigation Do for the Nursing Care System?

Private litigation brings problems to the attention of the public and their state representatives. It also gains the attention of the facility when their profits are seriously threatened. The purpose of the litigation is not only to pay a resident or his/her family for the pain and suffering endured, but to also seek corrective justice for society by instigating changes in the system.

Litigation has already produced results. As a result of increased litigation and increasingly higher verdicts, the federal government passed the federal Nursing Home Reform Act. This latest attempt by the federal government was designed to improve the nursing home conditions and care for patients. This legislation along with state legislation has set higher standards for nursing homes to follow. While conditions have improved, the need for private litigation has not waned.

[back to top]

---

How Does Daniel Stark Evaluate and Investigate Your Claim?

Discovering, investigating, and collecting information is key to the success of any personal injury case. Texas nursing home abuse and neglect litigation is document intensive and investigation intensive.

Each nursing home resident has a clinical record, or medical chart; the minimum contents of these documents are mandated by law. It is not unusual to find evidence of abuse or neglect in these clinical nursing records. In fact, the lack of training and medical knowledge of the nurses’ aides contributes to the explicit detail and circumstances surrounding even the most minor injuries. These clinical records can be extremely voluminous and each page must be strictly analyzed.

Other documents must also be requested. Often, patients are transferred to hospitals during the last days of their lives. These hospitals keep detailed records that may reveal abuse or neglect. It is not uncommon for an autopsy to be performed after the death of a patient. When these examinations occur, it is important to obtain these medical records. Unfortunately, the patient’s final destination is often a funeral home. Each funeral facility is also required to record the patient’s physical condition upon arrival. These particular reports can be highly useful in documenting the physical evidence of abuse or neglect.

A very important and controversial source of information is found in the Texas Department of Health surveys. The Department of Health has been authorized to gather and evaluate data and collect, compile, and compare such data on nursing homes in an attempt to improve the quality of care. Such data includes individual survey reports and investigation reports that licensed nursing homes are required to complete. However, this information is privileged—not available to the public—and is generally not admissible in any civil, administrative, or criminal proceeding. The Texas Health & Safety Code does allow this information into evidence in certain situations. Daniel Stark will attempt to have this information authenticated as “official records”, which will permit the documents to be used in a court of law.

In addition to clinical and hospital records, it is important to interview all family members who came in contact with the injured victim on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it is rare for a nursing resident to have regular visits. However, when visits do occur, it is essential for the visitor to document each significant observation made during such visits and to include the time and date these observations were made. These interviews must be conducted as close to the incident as possible so as to obtain clear and revealing information about the patient’s injuries and treatment.

Expert testimony is almost always necessary in nursing home neglect cases. These experts are necessary to explain to the jury how a particular ailment may lead to death or serious impairment when left unattended. These experts may also be necessary to establish a duty of care by the nursing facility.

[back to top]

---

What Must We Prove to Win?

The four essential elements of a claim for nursing home negligence are:

1. A legally cognizable duty requiring conformity to a certain standard of conduct (the duty of care owed by the nursing home, or nurses and employees of the home);

2. A failure to conform to the required standard (a breach or violation of that duty);

3. Actual injury (damages);

4. A reasonably close causal connection between the conduct and the alleged harm (a cause-and-effect relationship between the conduct of the nursing facility and the resulting injury).

1. Auto Accidents
2. Trucking Accidents
3. Wrongful Death
4. Construction Accidents
5. Drug Injuries
6. Defective Products
7. Dog Bite
8. Electrocutions & Burns
9. Medical Malpractice
10. Nursing Home Abuse

1. Avandia®
2. Chantix®
3. Fosamax®
4. Heparin Syringes
5. Hernia Patch Danger
6. Medtronic Sprint® Dangers
7. MRI Dye (NSF)
8. Ortho Evra®
9. Paxil®
10. ReNu®
11. Rhino ATV Rollover
12. Seroquel®
13. Trasylol®

Your Questions