Waldorf Nursing Home Bedsore Injury Attorney

Your elderly family member’s health and safety come first before any legal action. If you suspect abuse or neglect in the nursing home, do not hesitate to contact the local authorities and get your loved one out of the facility as soon as possible. You can report the problem to government agencies such as: 

• Adult Protective Services
• Office of Health Care Quality 
• Maryland Department of Aging Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program
• 911 or the local police department (if the matter is an emergency)

Promptly reporting the nursing home abuse or neglect allows these departments to investigate the nursing home sooner. They will also penalize the facility as they see fit and work towards improving the facility’s care standards.

Nursing Home Residents Have a Right to Receive Proper Care

A combination of federal and state laws regulates how nursing home facilities should care for their residents. Furthermore, nursing home residents also have a bill of rights stipulated in Md. Code Regs. 10.07.09.08. One of these rights includes receiving the proper treatment and care to enhance their quality of living in the facility. 

That means the nursing home staff should also prevent bedsores in the elderly. They should also provide access to quality health care services if the resident needs them. Moreover, the resident should have the freedom to choose their physician and participate in their treatment plans. Failure to provide such care for the elders can make the nursing home liable in the bedsore injury case. 

Our nursing home bedsore injury lawyer will study all of the relevant nursing home laws in your situation to better guide you in making your case. We can also help determine whether the entire nursing home is at fault or if only an individual is responsible for the injury so you can take legal action against the appropriate party. 

Recoverable Damages in Nursing Home Bedsore Injury Claims

If the bedsore injury case is successful, you and your elderly loved one may be able to recover economic and non-economic damages. Let us look into these two types of damages more closely here.  

Economic Damages for Financial Losses

Economic damages compensate you for the expenses accrued due to your elder loved one’s condition. These can include:

• Medical expenses such as hospitalizations, surgeries, doctor’s appointments, and medications
• Earnings you lost while caring for your loved one
• Cost of temporarily caring for your loved one yourself
• Cost of transferring your elderly loved one to a new nursing home

If your loved one later passed away due to bed sore complications, you could also get compensated for your funeral and burial expenses. To estimate your economic damages, your nursing home bedsore injury lawyer can help compile all records of related bedsore injury expenses, such as medical bills.

Non-economic Damages for Pain and Suffering

While calculating economic damages is straightforward, calculating non-economic damages is more complicated. These compensate your loved one for their pain and suffering. Typically, the more severe your loved one’s injury, the larger the compensation. To arrive at a dollar amount, the court will multiply the economic damages by a specified value based on the severity.

For example, if the bedsores were infected and required extensive surgery, your multiplier would be higher than if no surgery was required. Some examples of non-economic damages include:

• Emotional trauma
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Disabilities or disfigurements (for example, the bedsore may get infected enough to the point that it might need to get amputated)

Your nursing home attorney can review your loved one’s injury to estimate the amount of non-economic damages you could recover from the liable nursing home or party.

Contact Brown & Barron online today to schedule a free case review with a with a bedsore injury lawyer serving Waldorf.