As many families have experienced, often a loved one’s medical needs become so complicated that they must enter a nursing home or other long term care facility. Families entrust nursing homes with their loved ones to provide the medical care and personal attention that is promised upon admission into the facility. Unfortunately, some nursing homes do not deliver on the promise made to the family. Nursing home residents, due to their frail and weakened state, are often subject to abuse and neglect. Even when family members visit their loved ones on a regular basis, the signs and symptoms can go unnoticed to the untrained eye. Often, families are told that bruises, bed sores, skin tears, falls, weight loss, and even fractures, are unpreventable results of the “aging process.” When medical records are reviewed and depositions of caregivers are taken, it often becomes clear that these injuries were preventable and were in fact, the result of negligent care.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been very proactive in creating laws and regulations that specifically prohibit abuse and neglect of nursing home residents. Under the law of this Commonwealth, nursing home residents shall be free from mental and physical abuse and must be treated with consideration, respect, and full recognition of their dignity and individuality. Additionally, every resident, responsible party, responsible family member, or guardian has the right to be fully informed of the resident’s medical condition. Even more, federal regulation requires that every facility be administered in a manner that enables it to use its resources effectively and efficiently to attain and maintain the highest practicable, physical, mental, and psychology well-being of each resident. Violations of these state and federal laws are often the basis for nursing home and abuse claims.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been very proactive in creating laws and regulations that specifically prohibit abuse and neglect of nursing home residents. Under the law of this Commonwealth, nursing home residents shall be free from mental and physical abuse and must be treated with consideration, respect, and full recognition of their dignity and individuality. Additionally, every resident, responsible party, responsible family member, or guardian has the right to be fully informed of the resident’s medical condition. Even more, federal regulation requires that every facility be administered in a manner that enables it to use its resources effectively and efficiently to attain and maintain the highest practicable, physical, mental, and psychology well-being of each resident. Violations of these state and federal laws are often the basis for nursing home and abuse claims.