Residents with bed sores and residents who were designated to be at high risk of bed sores were provided careless and inadequate care at the Hitz Memorial Home in Alhambra, Illinois.
When an incident of nursing home abuse is captured on video, it creates an instant groundswell of outrage and condemnation in the media. Nursing home neglect however, is usually more deadly and happens far too often though it rarely makes the news.
A skin assessment is standard procedure for anyone being admitted into a nursing home. Because bed sores are so often signs of nursing home neglect, nursing homes and investigators need to be able to determine whether a bed sore occurred at the facility or prior to admission. One resident at Hitz Memorial arrived at the facility with multiple bed sores (also known as pressure ulcers) on his body. Orders for treatment of the wounds did not arrive with the resident.
Instead of contacting the Hitz Memorial medical director and making it clear that there were no standing treatment orders for the resident, the staff simply performed no treatment on the wounds. For days, the bed sores were left to fester untreated. There is no excuse for this omission. Standard facility policy dictates that the facility is to “use uniform treatment protocols for all wound types unless otherwise specifically ordered by physician.” As a result of this nursing home neglect, the bed sores worsened measurably.
Inspectors witnessed other incidents of inadequate care in Hitz Memorial’s wound care procedures. On one occasion, a nurse practitioner addressed multiple wounds without changing her gloves. Another resident designated “high risk’ for bed sores was left for over four hours in his wheelchair.
If you have a loved one who has developed bed sores in an Illinois nursing home, he or she may be the victim of nursing home neglect. Contact my law offices for a free and confidential evaluation of your case. Remember, we never charge a fee unless we take, and win, your case.
Other blog posts of interest:
Alton Rehab cited for bed sores
Multiple bed sores at Elmwood Terrace