Legal Claims For Inadequate Staffing In Nursing Home Facilities

Staffing is vital to ensure high quality of resident care. It’s a critical factor that determines the quality of care accorded to residents and the nature of their health outcomes.

When a nursing home facility is understaffed, this increases the risk of injuries to the residents, which can be intentional or unintentional.

It’s an ongoing issue that can be avoided.

If you took your senior to a nursing home for care, but they suffer injuries due to neglect emanating from understaffing, you may have a claim.

Understaffing In Nursing Homes 

If a nursing home has many patients but few staff, it’s more likely that seniors will suffer. This may bring about negligence or wrongful death claims. The fact is, sometimes the nursing home management avoids employing more staff internationally to avoid hefty costs.

Understaffing is a sole issue that can bring rise to legal actions. If your senior has suffered and you can blame the nursing facility’s inadequate staffing, you can choose to contact an elder abuse attorney to help you in your case. 

There are lots of reasons why a nursing home may be understaffed. These include:

• Staff turnover: If the nursing home has toxic culture, lack of growth, or issues such as being overworked, there is likely to be staff turnover.

• Lack of appropriate skills: If the staff is not trained to perform their work accordingly, the experienced few will have a hard time trying to cope with the workload. Seniors, especially those with injuries need a lot of care. For instance, they may be suffering from bedsores, among other injuries that need medical care.

Unskilled workers tend to spend more time seeking help on how to perform their duties; at times, they may also perform their work according to how they understand it, such could lead to mistakes.

• Cost-cutting measures: This is hard to control.  The management may be in recession mode and have no other way to keep such staff. Cost-cutting measures lead to reduced service equality. It also influences the staff morale.

• Wages payment issues: It’s a common issue in most nursing homes. When employees are not paid on due time, they are prone to leaving their jobs. Employees respect their job when paid a fair wage and on time.

While understaffing may lead to litigation, not every case may lead one to file a claim.

Whichever the case of understaffing, you need an experienced lawyer who understands nursing home abuse and neglect law to help determine whether the understaffing was intentional or unintentional.

Recognizing A Home Nursing Abuse Due To Understaffing

Overworked nursing staffs are more likely to neglect or abuse the resident.

You may be able to determine the effects of understaffing by:

• Resident abuse: Tired staffs are more likely to be impatient when offering care to the resident. Residents who have injuries need more attention. If the facility is understaffed, such injuries aggravate.

• Emotional abuse: A resident may have a sudden change of their behavior, or they may seem withdrawn

• Untreated medical conditions: Your resident may have unexplained wounds, springs etc.

There are so many warning signs to indicate a resident is suffering. An experienced nursing home lawyer can help you detect such signals.

It’s almost impossible for the understaffed facility to provide individualized care; as such, you will find that residents have the same clothes for some time, they are not fed well, those with bedsores or injuries that refrains them from moving will also be seen to have a hard time.

That is, the burden of understaffing falls on the seniors.

If you believe a nursing home facility is understaffed and has caused injuries to your resident, it may be appropriate to seek help from a nursing home abuse lawyer. Such a lawyer will advise you on whether the understaffing was intentional or unintentional.

Filing A Claim

Understaffed nursing home means that the facility lacks the right resources to cover the workload and provide the proper care to residents.

The nursing home management must ensure the demand for seniors care is maintained by having enough staff. Failure to do so may amount to negligence. In case of a claim, proving so is crucial.

Your lawyer will demonstrate that:

• The nursing home facility had a duty of care.

• The duty of care was breached as they intentionally failed to provide adequate staff to cover the workload.

• Your resident suffered injuries due to negligence.

If the staff is to be blamed, your lawyer will guide you on the best legal remedies.

If you win, you may get damages for any cost of the treatment you will undergo to treat your resident, pain which could be physical and mental or emotional distress.

The bottom line is that you need to have evidence that understaffing led to your residence injuries.

It may be more complicated than you think to prove that understaffing led to your resident injuries. That’s why it is recommendable to have a lawyer guide you.