;)
February 17th, 2016
It is difficult to understate the magnitude of the dangers facing our elderly friends, family members and loved ones. We would like to believe that these dangers can be prevented when our elderly citizens are under the protection of a long-term care facility. Tragically, however, this is not always the case.
According to a 2012 Research Brief published by the National Center for Elder Abuse, “Elder and vulnerable/dependent adult abuse affects millions of people in the U.S. It occurs regularly and in long term care settings such as nursing homes and board and care homes/assisted living facilities. It has been reported that ‘a vast reservoir of undetected and unreported elder mistreatment in nursing homes may exist.’” Abuse of Residents of Long Term Care Facilities, available at http://www.ncea.aoa.gov/Library/Review/Brief/ index.aspx.
That research paper cited some truly staggering statistics. For example, according to the brief, “Nearly 1 out of 10 [U.S. nursing] homes had violations that caused residents harm, serious injury, or placed them in jeopardy of death.” Further, “[O]ver 50% of nursing home staff admitted to mistreating (e.g., physical violence, mental abuse, neglect) older patients within the prior year in one study.” Id. (emphasis in original).
What can be done to minimize the occurrence of these tragic and largely preventable injuries and death? Clearly, the nursing homes themselves, their owners, their administrators and their staffs have a role to play in doing whatever they can to make the safety of their residents a top priority. Efforts along these lines should start with the commitment to provide enough caring and attentive staff members to meet the needs of their residents. Understaffing should simply never occur.
State and federal governments also have a role to play, as do the other agencies charged with reviewing and preventing instances of elder abuse and neglect. Of course, our communities also have a role to play in enforcing these rules and community standards. Once important aspect of community rule-enforcement is the civil jury system, which holds careless long-term care facilities responsible for the harm they have caused. Accordingly, lawyers should be aware of the range of tools available to help injured residents or their families seek justice.
Among those tools are the ordinary negligence laws, the laws governing professional liability actions, and the Ohio Wrongful Death Act. O.R.C. §§ 2305.113, 2125.01, et. seq. In addition to these powerful tools, lawyers should not hesitate to utilize the Ohio Nursing Home Residents’ Bill of Rights when helping members of the community enforce the rules by providing just compensation to injured residents and families.
The Ohio Nursing Home Resident’s Bill of Rights and its enforcement mechanisms can be found at Ohio Revised Code §3721.10, et seq. As the statute makes clear, it applies to broad categories of nursing homes and skilled care facilities and provides broad protections to the residents of those facilities. The Bill of Rights obligates the facility itself to protect the rights of its residents. Those rights are spelled out in the statute and include the right to a safe environment and the right to be free from abuse, among other important rights. O.R.C. § 3721.13.
The statute allows the state to take enforcement actions but it also provides a private right of action. As the statute states, “Any resident whose rights under sections 3721.10 to 3721.17 of the Revised Code are violated has a cause of action against any person or home committing the violation.” O.R.C. § 3721.17(I)(1)(a). The statute specifically allows residents and their families to seek injunctive relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages. O.R.C. § 3721.17(I)(1)(a).
The Ohio Nursing Home Residents Bill of Rights is a powerful tool to help families seek justice. Lawyers providing help to such families should consider its provisions when deciding how to proceed.
