Abuse in Nursing Homes
Placing a loved one in a nursing home is not something anyone would do without careful consideration. You will have made your decision trusting that the staff of the nursing home would protect and take good care of them.
Unfortunately this isn’t always the case. Whilst there are thousands of nursing homes that have an excellent reputation and provide great care for their residents there are many that don’t.
Sadly abuse and neglect cases in nursing homes can be read about each week. They fall into many categories:
- Negligence - This is when a nursing home’s treatment or services for its resident’s falls below the standard of reasonable care and the health, safety and welfare of its residents suffer
- Falls - Although there are a lot of falls in nursing homes due to the residents being elderly, a lot could be avoided. Patients in wheelchairs that are not secured in properly can easily slip out. Beds without rails to protect them or poor lighting are other things that lead to falls. Things like this could easily be prevented.
- Malnutrition and Dehydration - This will slow down any healing process which means the patient’s condition will get worse. It is the duty of the nursing home to provide nutritious meals and to ensure all residents get plenty to drink.
- Physical abuse - This could happen through medication being used inappropriately, food being force fed to a patient, shaking, pushing or slapping of a resident.
- Mental or emotional abuse - This can happen through verbal assaults on residents, humiliation or embarrassment. And non verbal actions, such as isolating a resident from others, treating an elderly person like a child, ignoring them or making them feel a burden.
- Sexual abuse - This is any kind of sexual contact that the person has not consented to. Rape, coerced nudity, touching. Even taking sexually explicit photos is a form of sexual abuse.
Contact Precision Claims
If you think someone you care about may be a victim of nursing home abuse call one of our elder abuse team on 0844 704 1945 or complete the online enquiry form and we will call you back.
