At Willis, Willis & Rizzi we have handled a wide variety of cases related to nursing home injuries. We have seen cases where nursing home staff members have intentionally hurt someone, as well as neglect nursing home residents. Many nursing homes in today’s environment are under-staffed and have difficulty, particularly since the COVID pandemic, in finding caring, qualified, affordable staff. Many times, the staff they are able to find are not reliable, or simply are not paying attention to the care required for nursing home residents.

We have seen residents in memory care units get outside the facility and freeze to death in the winter. Or, when residents call for help the staff doesn’t respond. In other cases, we have seen residents taken to a doctor’s appointment, and then no one picked them up so they were left wandering around the medical facility area and have been injured.

Our team at Willis, Willis & Rizzi has a lot of contact with nursing home facilities and many of them are struggling financially from a variety of factors. Those factors include not only the inability to find staff members or be able to afford to pay to get quality staff members but also the COVID 19 pandemic hit the senior age demographic very hard and many of them died. Thus, the population of seniors who need a nursing home facility is less than in years’ past. While the demand for nursing home care has declined, the bills and overhead that those nursing homes are responsible for such as mortgages and utilities still need to be paid. Reimbursement rates nursing homes get from Medicare and health insurers has not kept up with inflation.  Some of the larger nursing home companies that have multiple facilities are trying to sell-off some of their locations. However, it seems there is not much interest in buying a nursing home at the present time. In our opinion, supply is outweighing demand.

Nursing homes in Ohio are governed by the Ohio Department of Health and are subject to regulatory inspection. We have had nursing home injury cases where we have directed clients to the Ohio Department of health to report their case of injury or neglect. An Ohio Department of Health Ombudsman is responsible for investigating allegations of neglect at nursing homes and can come in and inspect and request access to the resident’s files, often before the facility has a chance to review and clean up a file where abuse or neglect has been reported.

If you feel your family member who resides at a nursing home is being neglected, contact the Ohio Department of Health and ask them to investigate. If you are noticing bed sores, rashes and feel there is abuse, egregious conduct or serious injury at the nursing home, also contact the local police and reach out to the personal injury attorneys here at Willis, Willis & Rizzi and we can help.

If you have a family member who needs a nursing home facility, don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions about the facilities staff, how long they have been working there, and what is the staffing turnover ratio. Also, a common complaint we hear about is theft; do not take anything of value to a nursing home!

Challenges in Nursing Home Injury Cases

One of the many challenges in a nursing home injury case is discovering the facts of what really happened. In the case of someone falling there should be documentation at the nursing home facility which details each event. Additionally, if a resident is not getting the correct medication, or getting too much or too little again there should be documentation indicating what is being given to the resident and what is prescribed.

In a suspected nursing home neglect or abuse case it is important to get a personal injury attorney engaged early since nursing home staff can turnover quickly which limits the ability to interview staff members to determine what happened in the case.

When reviewing the facts of a case, we are looking at what the standard of care is at the nursing home facility, and did the staff fall below that standard.

Why Hire Willis, Willis & Rizzi to handle your Nursing Home Injury Case

At Willis, Willis & Rizzi we are a boutique personal injury firm which means that we are not doing mass volumes of personal injury cases. If we decide to take on your case, you will get our best efforts to not only secure the maximum amount of compensation available but to also help in the healing process for you or your loved one. We will put in the time and resources to investigate and get the facts of the case, research the law, and apply the law. We have many years of experience in handling nursing home injury cases, and we have the skill and expertise to genuinely help you, not just get a quick low-ball settlement on the case.

When you are ready to have a conversation regarding a nursing home injury case, contact us for a free consultation at 330-535-2000.