Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

As a Chicago Medical Malpractice lawyer I have handled hundreds of nursing home cases over 25 years. This story from Kentucky is a little too typical:

Loren Richards, an 84-year-old Kentucky farmer, spent his last days bedridden and in intense pain. A bowel impaction that went neglected and untreated for several days finally caused a fatal heart attack, after a morning spent screaming for a doctor who never came. His family didn't know the truth of his terrible demise at the Beverly Health and Rehabilitation nursing home in Frankfort until weeks after he'd been buried. Daughter Jan Richards was at a church service when a man in front of her, who drove the city's handicapped van and had transported local nursing home residents, turned around to offer his condolences. It was so sad, he said, that her father had to die 'suffering like that and nothing was done for him.' Suffering? Nothing done? Richards, her brother Phil and sister Wanda Delaplane, had been told by the nursing home staff that his passing had been perfunctory. He'd had a history of heart problems and a stroke, after all. They believed his care had been good throughout his five years at the home, although after recent staff cuts, the family had noticed he wasn't always as clean as they'd hoped."

Andrea Billups & Fran Lostys, Reader's Digest, December 2006
http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=31303