West Virginia has seen a steep rise in nursing home abuse cases in recent years. With disabled and elderly citizens requiring around-the-clock care, it's crucial to ensure their safety. Unfortunately, many nursing homes fail to protect residents from abuse and neglect.
Nursing home staff must provide a safe and comfortable environment for their patients. However, this does not always happen. Often, nursing homes are overcrowded, understaffed, or have untrained workers providing the resident’s care.
Do you suspect your loved one was abused or neglected in a nursing home? The affiliate West Virginia personal injury attorneys can help to stop this systematic mistreatment. Contact our Parkersburg nursing home abuse lawyers at (800) 926-7565 (toll-free phone number) to schedule a free consultation now to get your case evaluated by our attorney.
What Is Nursing Home Abuse?Nursing homes assist the disabled and elderly to ensure their needs are met and that they have access to necessities all the time. Residents have the right to be treated with dignity and care. Nursing homes in West Virginia are obliged by the law to provide a safe environment to their residents.
They must also:
Unfortunately, many nursing centers fail to protect residents from abuse, neglect, and mistreatment.
Abuse in nursing homes involves negligent care of your loved one living in the facility, with no access to:
When the nursing home residents are deprived of these rights for a long time, it results in severe injuries or wrongful death.
Why Does Negligence Occur in Nursing Homes?Many nursing home neglect cases result from the facility administration or staff members. The most common causes of nursing home abuse and neglect are:
All the above actions are against the law, which means nursing homes committing any of the above offenses can be held accountable in criminal court. However, even if the perpetrator and facility are never held responsible for crimes, the victim or surviving family members can seek justice in civil court.
Forms of Nursing Home Abuse and NeglectNursing home mistreatment creates catastrophic health problems. Sometimes, there are signs of abuse when loved ones display a significant change in their behavior. However, the injustice often left psychological injuries, which are more challenging to identify.
Typical forms of mistreatment in nursing homes are:
Physical AbuseIt is when the caregiver, visitor, friend, family member, employee, or another resident uses force against your loved one resulting in physical harm or injury. It includes:
Emotional abuse is any non-physical harm caused to a resident, such as mental distress, by the staff, visitor, friend, family member, employee, or another resident. It includes:
Unwanted sexual interaction between the staff, a resident, and anyone else in the facility creates unspeakable harm. Sexual abuse could include:
Financial exploitation could occur when the facility administrator, staff, employee, another patient, visitor, or others force or manipulate a resident to provide information about their financial resources. Financial manipulation could also involve:
Caregivers intentionally or unintentionally failing to provide an elderly resident with their fundamental rights, such as grooming, feeding, and dressing, are common signs of negligence that might involve:
Negligent care often leads to wrongful death.
Common Signs of Nursing Home AbuseMany cases of nursing home neglect go unreported. For example, many victims fear retaliation against their abuser, and others cannot communicate due to health conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Common signs of physical and non-physical nursing home abuse include:
Take immediate action if you observe one or all of these signs in your loved one to protect other residents from becoming a victim.
How to Protect Your Loved One From Nursing Home Abuse?Talk to your loved one about what happened. Make notes of any information the victim shares and file a formal complaint with the facility administrator. By law, the Administrator must notify government agencies promptly to protect the victim from further neglect or abuse.
File a formal complaint with the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health. Contact local law enforcement if the abuse was egregious or if sexual assault is involved.
Speak with a nursing home abuse attorney who can help build a compensation case to hold the facility and perpetrator financially accountable.
Hire a Professional Abuse Lawyer to Receive Compensation for Your SufferingThe Parkersburg nursing home abuse lawyers at Nursing Home Law Center, LLC understand the ins and outs of federal and state laws related to abuse. In addition, our legal counselors work diligently to help families, and their abused loved ones receive full and fair compensation for the suffering caused by the nursing home facility.
Was your loved one mistreated in a nursing home? Our affiliate West Virginia personal injury lawyers have all the legal knowledge about filing a lawsuit for nursing home abuse cases. Contact us at (800) 926-7565 for a free case review.
Our law firm works on a contingency fee basis, meaning our attorneys don’t charge the clients any fee until they receive their settlement.
Resources:
Attorney Bob Daley
Licensed in West Virginia
Wood County Nursing Home Injury Lawyer Nursing Home Law Center LLC Home