Care Home Negligence

As people grow older, they become incapable of taking care of themselves and due to busy schedules of their relatives and friends, the better option for them is to be sent to a care home so that they can be properly treated and taken care of. But unfortunately, a large number of them do not get the attention and care that they deserve. It is the responsibility of the professional people at the care homes to care for the well being and safety of the patients. If they fail to properly care for you and cater to all your needs, then they are liable to be held responsible for breaching their codes of duty. Every year, a large number of medical & clinical accidents take place around the world due to care home negligence. Some of the results of negligence of care home professionals include unclean residents, broken bones, and bruises, depressed and withdrawn residents. Some others include:

• Drug or physical abuse that include burning, hitting, restraining or kicking an elder person, confinement or imprisonment and even providing wrong prescription or overdose of the medication to the patient.
• Psychological abuse which includes constant ridicule and criticism for humiliating them, verbal abuse for intimidating them and ignoring them to induce a feeling of insignificance in them.
• Financial abuse which includes unauthorised or illegal use of valuables belonging to them and fraudulent attainment of their power of attorney.
• Sexual abuse that means forcing the elderly people to involve in sexual conversations or activities against their wills.
• Negligence which includes depriving them of food, heat, water, clothing, necessary medications and other requirements.

Medical & clinical accidents may occur one time but if constant bruises and scars are seen on the body of the residents, then it is sure that they are being abused physically and are not saying anything because of some threat given to them. With millions of elderly people residing in care homes today, the issue of care home negligence has been on the rise. In simple words, many of the care homes are not able to provide individual attention and quality care to the elderly people and it has been believed that such incidents are likely to increase in number as the ratio between the care givers and the elderly patients is growing.
Another distressing situation is that a large number of care homes have been found out to be negligent towards the residents and are suspected to abuse them in one way or other.