A nursing home patient, connected to an oxygen line, sustained serious burns to his face and after his cigarette ignited the nasal line and the bed in which he was laying. The incident took place at Summit Park Nursing Home in New York. Nurses were able to extinguish the fire before the man sustained more serious burns to other parts of his body.

Read more about this case involving smoking-related burns here.

My take on this:

Nursing homes need to create and implement smoking policies to cut-down on situations such as this. Most smoking policies forbid patients from smoking in their rooms primarily due to the difficulty supervising them and the inherent risk of falling asleep while smoking. In this case, hopefully the New York Department of Health will investigate this matter so similar smoking-related injuries can be avoided.

For laws related to New York nursing homes, look here.
Click on the links for information on nursing homes in New York , Buffalo and Rochester

Related Nursing Home Law Center Blog Entries:

Unsupervised Nursing Home Resident Dies From Burns

Maximum Fine Levied Against Nursing Home For Failing To Supervise Resident While Smoking

Ron says:

December 3, 2009 at 2:13 am

Unfortunately, our habits don’t change when we move into an assisted living or nursing home. We would like to live our lives just as we had for the past 30 years, but it is not always the case. Things change. A lot of things change.
In this case, changing policies could have prevented this incident. Smoking in the nursing home-let alone near oxygen- should be banned completely. There is extreme risks for everyone in the nursing home.