Is It Nursing Home Abuse Or Medical Malpractice?

Nursing homes are special kinds of facilities, which create some unique legal issues, when someone is injured, abused or neglected in a nursing home. That’s because of the multiple roles that nursing homes play, for and on behalf of their residents.

Resident Care and Medical Care

Nursing homes are places where people who need long term care can live in, and get their needs met. They may be unable, on their own, to care for themselves. Some may just need help with some of life’s basic tasks, like bathing or dressing or taking medicines, while others may be almost completely bedridden, and only party conscious.

But one thing that all nursing homes residents have in common, is the need for medical care. Nursing homes are staffed not just with orderlies or assistants, but with trained, certified nurses, and often, with doctors, who are either employees, or who stop in to see and care for patients.

How Was the Victim Injured?

That means that when we have a loved one who gets injured or who falls ill in a nursing home, we may have no idea whether it is nursing home abuse or neglect or whether the medical issue is one of medical malpractice.

And because we aren’t there watching over our loved ones 24/7, we may be left to guess what happened to make our loved one sicker, or to injure them.

This is an important question to ask because if a loved one is injured, and if the family wants to make a claim for injuries or damages or compensation for pain and suffering, the way that a nursing home abuse case, and the way that a medical malpractice case are handled, are very different.

They often have different requirements before a lawsuit is even filed. They may have different time limits (statutes of limitation), saying how long a victim can bring a claim.

And if you do sue, and you sue for the wrong one, your case can get dismissed—and you may not have the right to bring it again, under the correct legal theory.

How to Tell the Difference

As a general rule, anything that involves medical care and treatment, or a level of training or expertise by the person administering the care that caused the injury, the claim made by the resident or the family would be one of malpractice.

On the other hand, if the claim revolves around an injury that came from non-medical treatment, it would be one for nursing home abuse or neglect.

Of course, things in the real world aren’t so black and white,, and there are many court cases that have hinged on the ambiguity between these two standards.

Start Investigating Early

One thing that you can do if a loved one has been injured in a nursing home, is get to an injury attorney as early as possible. This gives your attorney time to investigate the claim, to see whether any lawsuit that is filed, is for nursing home negligence, or for medical malpractice.

And, if the case is filed early enough, even if you end up filing under the wrong legal theory, you will have time to amend your lawsuit, to allege the proper legal theory.

Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 for help if you or someone you know or care about has been injured in or by a nursing home or assisted living facility.

Source:

riag.ri.gov/elder-abuse