$19 Million Nursing Home Neglect Verdict Awarded to Family of Patient who Sustained Over 20 Bedsores
A jury has awarded the family of John Danzy $19 million for nursing home neglect. The 176-year-old sustained over 20 bedsores during his nine months at Brooklyn Queens Nursing Home.
According to his daughter, Margaret Whitehurst, her father weighed 237 pounds and could walk on his own with the help of a cane when they admitted him to the assisted living facility. By the time they pulled him out of the nursing home, there were “holes all over his body” and he weighed 148 pounds. Danzy suffered from Alzheimer’s.
Whitehurst and her siblings transferred their father to another assisted living facility where he died six months later, in November 2003, from an infection caused by the bedsores.
Danzy’s family was awarded $15 million for punitive damages and $3.75 for his pain and suffering. The punitive damages are partially a result of allegations that the nursing home resident touched up its records in an attempt to conceal the nursing home neglect.
During testimony, an FBI expert said that someone had gone over approximately 100 skin-check notes that received “G” ratings for good and replaced them with “B”’s, for broken, to make it appear as if the facility had not overlooked Danzy’s nursing home bedsores.
The nursing home is accused of leaving Danzy unattended for long periods of time while he was restrained to prevent him from wandering off. Per medical standards, he should have been moved every two hours so that pressure sores wouldn’t develop on his body. Instead, the nursing home is accused of moving him every four hours or waiting even longer to do so.
Nursing Home Bedsores
There are regulations and procedures that assisted living facilities must follow to prevent nursing home bedsores from developing on a patient. Many of these steps are easy to follow. If detected immediately, a pressure sore usually can easily be treated. It is when a bedsore goes untreated that serious complications can arise.
A person shouldn’t have to die because a nursing home neglected to treat his/her decubitus ulcers. The nursing home resident can sue a facility for nursing home neglect.
NYC Nursing Home to Pay $19M in Damages for Patient Neglect, Fox News, December 28, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Bedsores, Mayo Clinic
