A resident of the Burnsides Community Health Center nearly died after a nursing home fall resulted in a subarachnoid hemorrhage, subdural hematoma, and a skull fracture. In spite of the resident showing a distinct change in mental status following the fall, the staff of Burnsides Community Health Center failed to notify a physician after the fall. Treatment was delayed for a full eight hours.
The fall that resulted in the severe injuries was hardly the first that the resident experienced while living at the facility. He was admitted to the facility in April of 2012, and each month the required Fall Risk Assessment reflected that the was a high risk of falls, severely cognitively impaired and unable to balance without staff assistance. He was admitted to the facility after having fallen at home six times in one week.
Given this history, Burnsides Community Health Center has no reasonable defense for failing to put reasonable interventions in place to prevent nursing home falls. Two months after admission, the bed alarm failed to sound, and the resident was found on his back with a raised areas on the back of his head.
Not every nursing home fall is a case of nursing home neglect, but failing to immediately immediately report changes in behavior to a resident’s physician in the hours following a nursing home fall certainly qualifies as such.
Few in the health care industry would deny that nursing home neglect and nursing home abuse are at epidemic levels in Illinois, in the United States, and across the globe. Experts point to a chronic level of understaffing that leaves residents vulnerable to nursing home falls, bed sores, malnutrition, and a variety of other symptoms of nursing home neglect.
The failure to report wild changes in mental status following a nursing home fall goes far beyond simple understaffing. This failure puts the very life of the resident into serious jeopardy.
If you have a loved one who has been injured in an Illinois nursing home, and you feel that nursing home neglect played a role in their injuries, contact our Chicago nursing home lawyers for a free and confidential evaluation of your case.
Other blog posts on nursing home falls:
Resident suffers multiple falls and multiple fractures at St. Joseph Village
Fall from toilet at Heritage Healthcare in Bloomington requires brain surgery
Fractured hip on Alzheimer’s victim at Westmont Nursing & Rehab untreated for days