According to the Times Standard, a Humboldt County jury awarded a major verdict of $671 million against a nursing home chain, with several similar lawsuits pending in the state of California. All lawsuits filed against Skilled Healthcare allege its nursing homes provide too few staff to meet resident needs.
Skilled Healthcare failed to meet the state staffing standard, according to a Humboldt County jury and imposed a fine of $500 per patient for each day that the chain was in violation. The nursing home chain agreed to settle those claims for $50 million and avert bankruptcy.
The class action settlement of $671 million is the largest of jury verdicts in nursing home litigation history. The Times Standard of Eureka covered Skilled Healthcare complaints and interviewed its residents in a series of published articles. The newspaper covered horror stories of residents talking about neglect and poor care due to understaffed nursing homes.
One former Skilled Healthcare resident spoke of how difficult it was for her to count on nurses to assist with her needs. Diana Medal claimed she would wait all night for a bedpan or assistance to the bathroom. Medal claimed the staff cared but they were overworked and understaffed, causing them to be unable to assist residents in a timely manner. Medal was one of 42,000 residents that participated in the lawsuit against the California facilities.
Tags: nursing home, nursing home facility, nursing home lawsuit, nursing home neglect, nursing home residents, Skilled Healthcare, understaff nursing home
Gosh if there was cases for some of the nursing homes in Australia….there would be too many nursing homes in court. Neglect is happening in many different forms in many different homes across the states. If only the residents could speak up…some of them are being neglected and are getting away with the neglect because the aged care person is not able to speak up. Nursing homes need a new system and a way to protect all aged care people. What gets me upset is that those aged care people are people that are important…they have feelings and are part of someones family.
Nursing Issues
I work skilled healthcare in des moines iowa and there is a lot of things that need to be investigated concerning care of residents and building they live in!