When you place your loved one in a nursing home, you expect that the facility’s care staff will monitor them for illness, including signs of infection. If left untreated, your loved one could suffer significant conditions, some of which can be fatal.
If your loved one suffered injuries or passed away due to an infection in a nursing home, you may have a legal claim for compensation. A Louisiana untreated infections lawyer may provide insight into your legal rights and options in this type of situation. They can consult with your loved one’s health care team, visit the nursing home’s facilities, and itemize the cost of your expenses. They can even determine whether the nursing home had any previous instances of abuse or neglect.
Contact Pintas & Mullins Law Firm at (800) 842-6336 to learn more.
Untreated Infections in Nursing Homes
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that between one and three million infections occur in nursing homes each year. Some types of infections in nursing homes include respiratory tract infections, gastrointestinal infections, urinary tract infections, and skin or soft tissue infections. Shared spaces, weakened immune systems, and ineffective sanitization makes nursing home residents especially vulnerable to illness.
The Mayo Clinic cites sepsis as a potentially fatal medical condition that can develop in older patients with untreated infections. Normally, the body releases certain chemicals in response to a threat to help fight it off. When the body’s response to an infection is off-balance, changes to multiple organ systems can result in sepsis. As with most infections, early treatment with appropriate antibiotics is crucial. If left untreated, sepsis can be fatal.
Treating the signs of infection promptly is crucial to securing an elderly resident’s health and wellbeing. When a nursing home’s care staff fails to recognize the signs of infection in a resident, minimize their symptoms, or provide adequate medical care, the infection may worsen.
If a nursing home’s negligence resulted in a loved one’s sickness or death, you have legal options available to you. You can call Pintas & Mullins Law Firm today to find out more about how a Louisiana untreated infections lawyer can assist you.
Nursing Homes and Their Legal Duty of Care
Nursing homes and their staff have a duty to provide an atmosphere in which residents receive quality care and medical treatment. They also must provide a setting where residents are free from abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, nursing home abuse and neglect still pose a threat to elderly residents nationwide.
If your loved one suffered injuries as a result of an untreated infection, you may have a claim for compensation against the nursing home for violating its legal duty of care. A Louisiana untreated infections lawyer can investigate your situation and determine liability for your loved one’s condition.
Nursing homes may face financial responsibility for injuries that nursing home residents suffer as a result of untreated infections. For example, failure to properly rotate patients with limited mobility can lead to bedsores, a type of skin infection. Failure to address illness complaints from residents or seek needed medical care for them can also lead to infections going untreated.
Sometimes, these situations result from nursing homes having chronic understaffing issues, failing to properly screen and hire qualified workers, and declining to appropriately monitor employees. All of these circumstances can result in a nursing home being liable for the injuries of their residents.
Under the legal doctrine respondeat superior, you could hold the nursing home accountable for its care staff’s actions, as explained further by the Legal Information Institute (LII). You could also hold the nursing home itself accountable for any substandard care that your loved one received.
For a free legal consultation, call (800) 842-6336
Compensation in Untreated Infection Claims
Depending on your circumstances, if your loved one suffered injuries due to an untreated infection while in a nursing home, you may be able to seek various forms of compensation.
Some of the available forms of compensation might include coverage for:
● Medical care for your loved one’s condition, including hospitalization expenses
● Transportation and related costs to switching facilities
● Mental and physical pain and suffering
● Medications and costs of future medical care due to the untreated infection
In some cases, untreated infections can be fatal. In that situation, you and surviving family members may have the basis of a wrongful death claim. In order of priority, the decedent’s spouse and children, parents, siblings, or grandparents can initiate this type of legal action, per Louisiana Civil Code (CC) §2315.2.
Some types of compensable damages in a wrongful death action include loss of consortium, the decedent’s funeral expenses, and the decedent’s outstanding health care costs.
Legal Aid on a Contingency-Fee-Basis
Right now, you can partner with a Louisiana untreated infections lawyer at no out-of-pocket cost to you. At Pintas & Mullins Law Firm, we offer our services to prospective claimants on a contingency-fee-basis. We do not charge hourly rates or require a retainer. We get paid our attorney’s fees out of the settlement amount we get for you. Otherwise, you may not owe us anything.
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Your Nursing Home Attorney Can Fight for Your Rights
If an untreated infection has left your loved one with devastating injuries or taken their life, you may have a claim for compensation against the nursing home that failed to protect them. Although holding the nursing home accountable for their actions may seem like an insurmountable task, a Louisiana untreated infections lawyer can work to make the process easier.
Together, we can work to force a nursing home to publicly admit its mistakes, compensate your loved one for their injuries, and prevent harm from befalling other nursing home residents in the future.
Pintas & Mullins Law Firm can fight for your loved ones’ legal rights and make the nursing home take responsibility for their negligence. Call (800) 842-6336 to get more information about your financial recovery options.
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