Filing a Report Against the Nursing Home

You may wish to file a report against the nursing home facility if your loved one develops a bedsore during the course of his or her stay. This is because it has been proven that bedsores are largely preventable with adequate care and attention to turning schedules along with nutritional needs and vigilance on the part of nursing home staff. The development of a bedsore, especially a severe bedsore, indicates that your loved one has not been properly cared for by the staff, and may even be a victim of nursing home neglect or nursing home abuse.

The conditions required for a bedsore to develop – continual pressure on one area, irritated skin, excessive moisture, malnutrition and dehydration – are all indications of a problem with the level of care that nursing home staff members provide on a daily basis. If your loved one was assessed as being at risk for developing bedsores, this compounds the issue, as staff members should have been notified and there should have been specific adjustments in the care plan in order to prevent the development of the bedsore, or at the very least, catch it in the beginning stage.

There are several agencies that you can contact if you have a concern about the level of care that your loved one is receiving. One is the local ombudsman’s office. Ombudsman act as senior advocates for nursing home residents and may be able to assist your loved one and others in the nursing home as well who are suffering from inadequate care. You may also wish to report the nursing home to the state regulatory agency that oversees nursing homes in your state – these agencies conduct regular quality inspections and ensure compliance with state laws regarding the level of care that nursing homes receive.

You may also wish to contact an attorney. If you feel that your loved one has been a victim of neglect or abuse, there are legal issues at stake that only an experienced and reputable nursing home abuse attorney can help you to resolve. Because there is a statute of limitations for these types of complaints, you should speak to a nursing home abuse lawyer right away if you feel that the situation requires any sort of legal intervention. Your loved one may be able to recover damages from the nursing home as a result of having developed bedsores due to inadequate care.

Hospitals and Bedsores

Bedsores may develop in a hospital setting as well. Despite the fact that hospitals in general have a better reputation for providing quality care versus nursing homes, the same problems that cause difficulties for understaffed nursing home facilities are found in hospitals which do not have enough qualified staff members on call. Additionally, hospitals can vary greatly on the types of equipment and facilities they have to offer. Therefore, if you are scheduled for any procedure that may leave you bedridden for more than a few days, it is in your best interests to research the hospitals available to you, and work with your physician to find one that provides everything you need in terms of both staffing and equipment.

If you will be undergoing surgery that requires you to be under general anesthesia, you may be at risk of developing a Stage I bedsore while on the operating table. This is because during the operation, you will not be able to move, and if specialized padding is not used to distribute pressure throughout the operation, you may suffer from an extended loss of circulation to one or more areas of the body, leading to a Stage I bedsore. This can quickly worsen if not discovered and you remain bedridden after the surgery is completed.

Bedsores can lead to longer, more costly hospital stays, and treatments for secondary infections can become quite expensive. Because of this, it is important to choose a hospital that has a proactive approach and hands-on philosophy when it comes to bedsore prevention and treatment. As of October of 2008, Medicare does not pay for bedsores which develop during the course of a hospital stay, so you should find out if and how much the hospital will charge you if a bedsore does develop during your hospital stay in order to avoid unexpected charges. Ideally, the hospital you choose should provide the level of care necessary to minimize the risks of bedsore development. Always research beforehand if at all possible, in order to find the best hospital for your needs, both in terms of insurance cost and health benefit.