The failure of Dyball Sunshine Nursing Home to adequately staff their overnight shift risks turning an emergency situation into a tragic disaster, according to a report by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH).
An emergency situation in a nursing home is different from almost any other institution. Waking nursing home residents is a lengthy process. Many require wheelchairs and have severe vision impairments. Some are unable to move at all and require two staff members to transition them to a wheelchair.
Ask any firefighter, they’ll tell you that the transition between a room or building with a fire inside it into a room or a building on fire is much, much shorter than most people would ever imagine. Once the transition takes place, the chances of anyone getting out alive become very small.
The overnight staff of Dyball Sunshine Nursing Home is exactly 1 single person. That’s 1 person from 12:15 AM to 8:15 AM, a full third of the day. That’s not even enough to safely get many nursing home residents to the bathroom, much less execute an emergency evacuation.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve written several articles about emergency procedures and the ramifications they have on the safety of nursing home residents. What originally caught my attention was a study issued by the Department of Health and Human Services that analyzed 24 nursing homes that experienced a disaster between 2007-2010. The results of the study showed an industry unprepared for emergency.
Then, the combination of a heat wave with no air conditioning caused the evacuation of the Sheltering Oak nursing home in Lake Island, Illinois.
If you have a loved one who has been injured during an emergency situation at an Illinois nursing home, you should contact an attorney with experience in nursing home abuse and neglect cases.
A lack of staffing, like the situation at Dyball Sunshine Home, is more than an indicator of poor emergency preparedness. It’s also a strong indicator of nursing home neglect. Many nursing home residents require constant care to prevent bed sores and other infections common to nursing home residents. These interventions require adequate staffing.
An experienced nursing home attorney knows that staffing is the root cause of most nursing home neglect cases. If you have a loved one who you feel may have been the victim of nursing home neglect, contact my law offices for a free and confidential evaluation of your case.