“No Harm; no foul” is a popular playground refrain. The idea is that if no serious damage occurred, there can’t have been anything too dangerous or against the rules of the game happening. But waiting for a serious injury to take place is not a reasonable attitude for a playground, and it’s an outrageous viewpoint for a nursing home to take.
Staff members at the North Adams nursing home in Mendon, Illinois committed several highly dangerous transfers of residents in their care.
In one instance they transferred a resident from his bed to his wheelchair without changing his catheter bag causing urine to flow back into the resident’s bladder. Obviously, urine that re enters a person’s body can lead to urinary tract infections and other illnesses.
Even more seriously, the staff attempted to transfer the same resident back to his bed by tipping the wheelchair onto its back two wheels while hoisting the resident out of the chair using a mechanical lift.
The North Adams Director of Nursing told inspectors that tipping a wheelchair onto its back is not proper transfer procedure, but was unable to provide inspectors with a facility policy for chair-to-bed transfers.
It may seem inconceivable that something as integral to nursing home care as moving a resident from bed to wheelchair might be taking place with no training. Yet, as a Chicago nursing home lawyer, I can tell you that the scenario happens far more often than you might imagine.
Botched transfers lead to hundreds of nursing home falls every year. These falls can range from the relatively benign to the excruciating that end up destroying the quality of life for countless numbers of residents each year.
One of our core beliefs is that nursing homes are built to fail due to the business model they follow and that unnecessary injuries and illnesses and wrongful deaths of residents are the inevitable result. Order our FREE report, Built to Fail, to learn more about why. Our experienced Chicago nursing home lawyers are ready to help you understand what happened, why, and what your rights are. Contact us to get the help you need.
Other blog posts on nursing home falls:
Failure to use lift at Avenue Care Center