By: Russell Keener  —  February 11, 2012
 

As a Geor­gia med­ical mal­prac­tice attor­ney I’m con­cerned to read the lat­est report about poor stan­dards of care at many of Georgia’s nurs­ing homes.

When nurs­ing homes score badly in inspec­tions, it means res­i­dents often aren’t get­ting the care they deserve. It may be they are being neglected or over­med­icated. In some cases prob­lems at nurs­ing homes have led to med­ical mal­prac­tice law­suits or even wrong­ful death lawsuits.

The sober­ing news from the lat­est fed­eral rat­ings is that nurs­ing homes in Geor­gia, seem to be far­ing par­tic­u­larly badly.

“In Geor­gia, more than one in 10 nurs­ing homes have con­sis­tently received one star in the Cen­ters for Medicare & Med­ic­aid Ser­vices rat­ing,” stated Florida Today.

One star rat­ings are awarded to nurs­ing homes “much below aver­age” com­pared with other homes in their state, accord­ing to CMS. Issues that can lead to a one star rat­ing include dirty linens and equip­ment, mis­treat­ment and unli­censed care­givers or spe­cial­ists work­ing at the facilities.

Nation­ally there was a gen­eral improve­ment in the stan­dard of nurs­ing homes. Unfor­tu­nately, the worst estab­lish­ments are often fail­ing to improve. In total more than 560 of America’s nurs­ing homes have not budged for the past three years from their lowly one-star fed­eral gov­ern­ment rating.

The rat­ings are based on reg­u­lar inspec­tions. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment con­tracts with states to go into nurs­ing homes about once a year.

Our Atlanta, GA nurs­ing home law firm, has rep­re­sented clients who have suf­fered a host of prob­lems at nurs­ing homes.

Injuries and acci­dents at nurs­ing homes may include:

• Bed sores (Also called “decu­bi­tus ulcers” or “pressure sores”)
• Med­ica­tion errors, such as overmedication
• Dehy­dra­tion or malnutrition
• Stran­gu­la­tion or asphyxiation
• Injuries caused by bed rails or other phys­i­cal restraints
• Repeated falls
• Wan­der­ing (Also called “elopement”)
• Phys­i­cal assault or sexual abuse

In extreme cases fed­eral fund­ing can be with­drawn from poor nurs­ing homes. In 2007, for instance, agen­cies took action against Moran Lake Nurs­ing Home and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter in Rome.

The Geor­gia Depart­ment of Human Resources’ Office of Reg­u­la­tory Ser­vices closed the facil­ity after numer­ous poor inspec­tions that found it vio­lated fed­eral and state reg­u­la­tions, the Atlanta Jour­nal Con­sti­tu­tion reported.

In Sep­tem­ber, 2010, the oper­a­tor was ordered to pay $43.5 mil­lion in a wrong­ful death law­suit. Loretta Ter­hune, whose 80-year-old father, Mor­ris Elli­son, died in 2007, said the home failed to pro­vide ade­quate care.

“Her father, who was admit­ted to the facil­ity a year ear­lier, fell numer­ous times, break­ing his hip in one instance, accord­ing to the law­suit. The nurs­ing home also did not notify Ellison’s doc­tors or fam­ily of his injuries,” the Jour­nal Con­sti­tu­tion reported.

As a Geor­gia wrong­ful death attor­ney, I find the cir­cum­stances of this case to be dis­turb­ing. And while the lat­est set of gov­ern­ment rat­ings do not auto­mat­i­cally equate to neglect and abuse at one tenth of all of the state’s nurs­ing homes, they cer­tainly raise a red flag about con­di­tions at many of the state’s res­i­den­tial facilities.

Our Mari­etta, GA injury lawyers, are con­cerned about the con­di­tions at many of the state’s nurs­ing homes. If you or a rel­a­tive has been injured or neglected at one of these facil­i­ties, con­tact the Geor­gia mal­prac­tice injury attor­neys at The Keener Law Firm today for effec­tive, vig­or­ous legal representation.