A senior care home is a place that should be warm, loving, and safe for senior citizens and in many of these establishments, that is true. Unfortunately, not all nursing homes are known for being the caring spaces that our aging parents need, which can lead to them getting injured.
Sometimes it may not be that the staff isn’t administering proper care but that the facility itself is not built in a way that can reduce the chances of injury. So if your parents ever get injured in a nursing home, you need to know how to protect them, here’s how you can do that.
File a complaint
The good news about filing a complaint against a nursing home is that it isn’t strictly reserved for family members or other residents of the home. Anyone or any organization can file a complaint for your parents. You can even contact Babcock Injury Lawyers to help you during this process.
Stephen Babcock, who is the founder of Babcock Injury Lawyers Louisiana, is an experienced trial lawyer with over 20 years of experience. Stephen Babcock also has experience in getting his clients favorable out of court settlements. If such an offer is made, the Department of Public Health (DPH) must still get contacted.
Present facts
Before you file a complaint, you need to ascertain whether the nursing home can legally be held accountable for your parent’s injury. This means the injury should be due to causes that fall under negligence or abuse, such as mistreatment, unsafe living conditions, and poor care by staff members.
Once you’ve determined that the nursing home is legally accountable for the injury, you can choose to either call or write to a DPH district office. When lodging the complaint, ensure that you clearly state what caused the injury, who witnessed it, and other proof of the incident like medical and other relevant records.
An investigator is assigned
When two working days have elapsed since the DPH received your complaint, the district office must let you know the name of the person investigating the complaint. You may be allowed to familiarize the investigator with the details of your complaint before the on-site inspection, which must take place ten working days after your complaint’s receipt.
However, if your complaint is about a life-threatening situation or a problem that can lead to grievous bodily harm, an investigator will be on-site in 24 hours. An investigation must be completed 90 days after the DPH receives your complaint. The investigator can get a deadline extension of 60 days but must notify all parties involved in writing.
Appeal
When the investigation is over and you aren’t happy with the outcome of the DPH’s investigation, you can request an informal conference. However, you will have to request this conference within 30 days after you receive the results of the investigation.
After the DPH receives your appeal, they must schedule the informal conference to take place within 30 days, the district manager or a representative will be present. The DPH must get in contact with all parties involved ten days after the conference with a decision. You can bring an attorney throughout the process to ensure that your parent’s legal rights are protected and to make things easier should you choose to go to court.
Protect your legal rights
If the DPH doesn’t keep you posted on the progress of your application as detailed above, you first have to keep checking it on your own. To check on it, you will need to have the investigator’s phone number and your complaint number.
If the investigator assigned to your complaint isn’t responsive, you may have to report the matter to that individual’s superiors. That can be a tiring experience if you don’t have a lawyer.