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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – In the United States of America, around 13% of the population is older than 65 years and almost 6 million people are older than 85 years and, with the pace of life that the current society has, many people do not have the time, resources or even the skills to take care of their older relatives as they would like. This is more common in those cases of people whose relatives have diseases which are difficult to control and require specialized medical care, but do not have enough economic resources to hire a private nurse to guarantee ideal care.
Therefore, many people have turned to trust a nursing home and delegate these important and necessary caregiving tasks to professionals. Then, when a family is choosing a nursing home for one of their members, they must consider many aspects, but one of the most important is the reputation that the center has in terms of how the caregivers and other employees treat the people who are under their care and the trust they inspire.
Nursing homes must assume the responsibility of taking care of an elder person by providing proper facilities, professionals, responsibility and trust. However, not all the caregivers have the necessary vocation to take care of the elderly, so in one way or another, they do not do it properly.
This reality can be corroborated by the fact that, unfortunately, in the United States the cases of abuse to elder people in care facilities and nursing homes are becoming more frequent. The statistics show that more than 2 million elder people are abused per year in those centers, this is the same to say that 1 of every 10 elder adults is abused by their caregivers.
Likewise, in 2016 over 2 million cases of abuse to elder people in thesetypes of care centers were properly reported.
The most alarming fact about these statistics is that lawyers and other experts in the area who are closely related to these cases (such as social workers) say that most abused people do not report the abuse, so the real numbers must be much higher. In many cases, this occurs because the abused patients have physical or mental infirmities that incapacitate them to report the abuse.
It is very alarming that between 1999 and 2016 at least a third of the nursing homes registered in the United States of America were suedfor causing damage to the people that were under their care. Of those lawsuits, approximately 10% were due to serious injuries or even the elder death.
Likewise, at least a 90% of elder people who live in a nursing center report that they or any other resident of the center have been victims of negligence. At this point, it is very important to highlight that abuse not only refers to physical violence but also verbal (yelling and insulting) or not carrying out the necessary care through negligence.
This is closely related to the fact that many of America’s elderly residing in nursing homes are in an isolated and dependent position, so the simple fact of ignoring him/her can cause serious damage to his/her mental and physical health.
When the trust and ethics disappear, and the caregivers do not comply with their part of the agreement, the elderly and his/her family may sue the center and its caregivers to receive a proper compensation for all the damages that the patient has suffered. In fact, many lawyers with experience in this area say that both the patient and his/her family must be compensated morally and economically by any mistreatment of the person that they promised to take care of.
This is important because when these situations occur, both the patient and his/her family feel a potent sense of helplessness that might lead to execute reprisals without reporting the incident to the nursing home or legal authorities, which only predisposes to more abuses by irresponsible workers.
Attorney, Ed Atkinson , a Virginia lawyer specializing in Nursing Home and Elder Abuse says that, “One of the most difficult things to prove a case of nursing home abuse is the fact that the family must look for evidence of abuse and neglect, which is not always easy”. This is why it is recommendable to look for a social services expert and a qualified lawyer which can help to detect some signs of abuse such as bruises, sores, broken bones, dehydration, weight loss, confusion (without a history of dementia), dirty or torn clothing, among others.
The government of the United States of America is developing new strategies to increase the oversight of the relationship between workers and patients of nursing homes and elder care facilities. So, looking for a qualified and experienced lawyer in the area is very important to obtain the best advice and consolation to overcome this terrible situation.
We know that there is not enough money to help to heal the pain of seeing a loved one suffer, but if the lawyer finds facts and evidence to warrant the case, the family can start a lawsuit against the center and obtain a fair compensation.