Connecticut Injury Firm LLC

We spoke with Paul Levin from Connecticut Injury Firm LLC about why nursing home injuries happen, such as understaffing, care plan failures, and behind-the-scenes factors, and Connecticut resident rights in these situations.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison Demurz. It's my pleasure to have in studio again,
Attorney Paul Levin from the Connecticut Injury Firm. Last time
you were here, we talked about warning signs of nursing
home neglect. Today we're going to talk about why nursing
home injuries happen.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, thank you for having us.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
A large part of our practice is actually.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Picking up the pieces after those things do happen.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
So the first part of our conversation was really to
try to avoid those things from happening.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Once they've happened, and you see that something.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Needs to be elevated and it's no longer a question
of speaking and complaining and trying to have something avoided.
That's when a law firm can maybe come in and
get you that accountability and get you that justice. But
things happen in these contexts not because people are bad
people or the nurses don't care. They happen for a
variety of reasons. Sometimes it's understaffing, sometimes it's lack of

(00:56):
attentiveness even if they're well staffed, and sometimes it's because
they breach what they call their professional standards. Of care,
whether they're nursing standards, medical standards, or facility management standards.
So remember you're dealing in an environment where you have
a vulnerable population.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
They're captive, they're.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Not typically able to eat what they want, choose the
medicine they want, choose the doctors and the care they
get delivered.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Everything's sort of regimented for them.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
And in those contexts, everything from the activities of the
ali living have to be carried out in a certain way.
Sometimes people need assistance transferring, standing or walking or even
during an OT or a PT session, and an injury
can happen. Sometimes it's a slow train and there's dehydration

(01:47):
that's setting in. They're not eating normal, they're not drinking.
They may actually have a stomach problem which is written
off as temporary, but if it persists more than a day,
it could become problematic. Sometimes it's a question of onliness
or wound care, or the onset of a wound from
skin breakdown that could be avoided by proper repositioning, by

(02:08):
proper medication. Sometimes it's just lotions, positioning a pillow and
lotions and offloading an area, and you know, people come
in with all kinds of comorbidities the elderly population. Unfortunately,
we all get there and we either have pulmonary issues,
cardiac issues, systemic issues, we're if we have diabetes, we

(02:30):
have circulation issues, we have neuropathies. So you have any
number of these comorbidities that are combined with a failure
in standard implementation. And it's usually a care plan that
is what your guide is. There may be five or
ten key areas that they're just supposed to get right
with your relative so that they can keep them chronically

(02:52):
healthy for as long as that can be. And if
they drop the ball in any of those areas, sometimes
there's visual evidence, but sometimes it's just behavioral evidence until
they get sick. One last thing, there's a tendency sometimes
to keep people out of the emergency rooms, out of
the hospitals. I think these facilities actually get good grades

(03:14):
and maybe some financial incentives for limiting or rationing the care.
And obviously you don't want to send somebody to an
emergency room. It's traumatic when they don't need to be there.
But if you wait too long, even forty eight hours
too long, sometimes it could be tragic.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So if a family member has been injured, how do
you take care of that legally or medically.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Medical is the first issue. So you want prompt care.
You want prompt evaluation. If they fell and hit their head,
you want a neurological exam.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
You want to make sure that there's no change in behaviors.
You want to monitor them.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Very closely, serially, and if they need stitches. A lot
of these nursing homes they can do basic things, but
they can't actually do the stitches. So that's a good
reason to make sure somebody gets sent out to emergency.
Why because they could do a cat scan. If the
fall's unwitnessed and there's a bruising on the forehead, for example,
you can't really ask that person, you know, did you

(04:08):
injure the inside of your brain? You might have a
developing brain bleed. You can't know that unless you do
a cat scan. They don't have cat scans at these
nursing facilities. So I would say that you know you
want to have just like you can choose to have
resuscitation should that be needed. You really want to make
sure that the care plan includes, you know, prompt evaluation,

(04:29):
prompt notification to the family members if there's a fall
or any sort of injury and the family members should
say let's get them looked at, let's get them out
of there.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
And if they need you, they can go to Connecticut
injuryhelp dot com or just call. I'm speaking with attorney
Paul Levin from the Connecticut injury Firm. Thank you so
much for being here today.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
You're welcome.