Elder Law

Family Files Nursing Home Lawsuit After Deadly Care

By Levin & Perconti

Earlier this month the Seattle PI posted a story on a new nursing home lawsuit that was filed against a state Department of Social and Health Services for their inadequate oversight of a nursing facility that they say lead to death of their mother. Specifically, the family of the victim alleges that the state should have shut the nursing home down long before it did. If that would have happened, their mother would still be alive.

The elderly victim was known as a proud, smart woman who was in good physical health before entering the Houghton Lakeview Adult Family Home. She did begin suffering from Alzheimer?s which necessitated the move into the facility for closer care as her mental problems began.

What her family didn?t know was that the care at the facility would be so poor that their loved one would suffer through a slow, painful death. The caregivers at the facility simply let the victim slowly fend for herself, providing little to none of the close care needed to keep her healthy. The Alzheimer?s made it impossible for the victim to speak?forcing her to endure the agony in silence. By the end of her stay there, the woman weighed only 68 pounds and was infected over her entire body with bed sores. One of the sores was extremely deep, exposing her hipbone.

The resident?s son explains, ?It was grizzly and ghastly, an extremely painful kind of horrific death.?

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on December 27, 2010 (boomark / email).