It seems that lately, we are writing more and more about the elderly being neglected and abused by their adult children. As the economy worsens, less people can afford to go into a nursing home or long term care facility and find themselves depending on family members for essential, life sustaining care. But caring for an elderly adult is a huge responsibility and requires a commitment that not everyone is able to follow through with. It is unfortunate that our elder abuse lawyers see so many of these cases and have to warn the elderly to look out for signs of abuse and neglect from their own children.
Woman Waited a Week after Her Mother Died to Call for Help
On November 19, 2010, Nancy Byrd Lewis, 59, called 911 to report that her 79-year-old mother, Hazel Tolbert Byrd, was unresponsive. When the paramedics arrived at the house where the two women lived, they found Byrd lying in bed covered in several days worth of feces, urine, and maggots from her waist to her feet. The State Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy and determined that Byrd had been dead for at least a week before the 911 call was made. The autopsy also said that she was filthy, had matted hair and several skin ulcers. This led to an investigation where officials found that in 2005 Byrd suffered a stroke and moved in with Lewis, who took the role of her mother’s caretaker. The elderly woman also suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes, but did not take any of her medications nor had she visited a doctor since being released from the hospital.
Lewis was arrested in March 2010 and charged with domestic abuse, neglect, and exploitation of disabled or elder adults. She recently pled guilty to felony elder abuse, was sentenced to eight months of probation and 100 hours of community service, ordered to pay court costs, and cannot work at a day care of retirement facility.
Elder Abuse Lawyers in New Jersey and Philadelphia
If your loved one is currently under the care of an individual or they are a resident of a nursing home or care facility and you are worried that the care they are receiving is negligent, abusive, or inadequate and you would like to speak with one of our elder abuse lawyers, Contact the Mininno Law Office for a free case evaluation. You may also call for a free consultation at (856) 833-0600 in New Jersey, or (215) 567-2380 in Philadelphia.
Last month, our 
While at the hospital awaiting his transplant, an unrelated instance of medical negligence led to serious medical issues for Dr. Parsons. Parsons was accidentally given a dose of insulin from a nurse who failed to read a note that specifically stated that no insulin be administered. Medical malpractice attorneys believe that the insulin led Parsons into a diabetic coma and eventually caused his death only three weeks later. That’s when medical malpractice attorneys took on the case of Parson’s widow and family to seek justice for the alleged malpractice. The case never reached trial, which allowed the parties to avoid a lengthy litigation process. The two parties agreed to settle for a sum of approximately $5 million earlier this month. It appears that nurses had previously complained to higher-ups that the healthcare providers, on the floor Parsons was located, were overworked and given far too many patients.
A very popular scam in recent years has been to call elderly adults pretending to be a grandchild, asking for money to be wired due to some emergency. This Grandparent Scam has cost people thousands of dollars all over the country. The scam has been around for several years, but it has gotten more elaborate lately. Originally, scammers would call and slowly get details from the victim through the conversation. Now-a-days, the caller will already know detailed information before they make the call. They will immediately identify themselves as a grandchild by name and give other details about their lives in order to increase credibility. Officials are warning everyone, especially the elderly, to never send money to family members or loved ones unless you can be certain you are sending it to the right person. It is easy for predators to access personal information so you must ask more than just basic information.
First, Damian Saul, 43, suffered a massive stroke while he waited for hours to see a physician at a city hospital. Upon his arrival, Saul informed a nurse that he was having trouble with his sight in one eye. This should have been recognized by the nurse as an initial sign of a stroke. The ensuing stroke left him almost completely paralyzed and he was unable to speak clearly. His medical malpractice attorneys reached a settlement of $5.5 million. His medical malpractice attorneyswere quoted as saying,
Jeffers’ family agreed to a settlement with Methodist Hospital and emergency room workers in the amount of $10 million. Medical malpractice attorneys believe that $9 million will come from the hospital while the remainder will be paid by Emergency Physicians Medical Group of Sacramento, resulting in one of the largest awards in California history. Some of the money will go towards current expenses and the remainder will be given to young Malyia, beginning in 2026 on her 18th birthday, at $16,000 per month. Although California has a damage cap in place at a quarter of a million dollars, this only limits damages related to “pain and suffering”. Medical malpractice attorneys believe that this settlement was properly designed to avoid the cap and attribute the amounts of money to different types of damages. Hopefully, this amount of money will help the young girl adapt to her new life after this devastating case of malpractice and will allow her to lead a normal life.
After a state Health Department investigation, a Minnesota nursing home is being held responsible for the death of 82-year-old Keith H. Johnson. The nursing home served Johnson a tuna sandwich on December 13, 2010 which was in violation of his doctor’s orders to only eat pureed food because of his history of eating too fast and choking. The man, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, was then left unsupervised and began to choke on the sandwich. An employee noticed that he was trying to cough and then became unresponsive and was not breathing. There were two failed Heimlich maneuver attempts to restore his breathing before Johnson was taken to the hospital. He died six days later from lack of oxygen to his brain and cardiac arrest.
At the end of October the police went to the son of 74-year-old Carol Brown’s home to find her unresponsive and living in deplorable conditions. The paramedics rushed Brown to the hospital but she died several days later. According to the officers who entered the home, they described Brown as “a rotting corpse that was still breathing.” The rescue crews had to pry her from the leather recliner because her legs had become fused to the chair. Court documents also revealed that she was sitting in her own bodily fluids and waste with a swollen ankle wound with maggots inside. According to Brown’s daughter Laura Sanders, the doctors told her “There were sores on her back the size of a man’s fist.”
Medical malpractice attorneys have traditionally believed that the use of electronic medical records would actually decrease the number of medical mistakes and other prescription errors. With the increase in technology, medical malpractice attorneys thought that doctors and nurses would be better equipped to avoid preventable mistakes and injuries and reduce the potential for civil lawsuits. It is easy to see why people thought that better technology would help healthcare providers avoid unnecessary medical malpractice. Doctors, who are notorious for poor handwriting, would not have the same problems communicating data to others in patient charts, the equipment could monitor drug prescriptions to avoid dangerous mixtures, and hospital workers could be alerted easily of particular patient conditions without the hassle of digging through charts. However, many studies are now showing that the expected benefits of the new healthcare technology are not coming to fruition as fast as expected, if at all. The Institute of Medicine has also highlighted numerous dangers that could lead to malpractice and cause patients severe injuries. The report stated “although the magnitude of the risk associated with health IT is not known, some examples illustrate the concerns. . . Dosing errors, failure to detect life-threatening illnesses, and delaying treatment due to poor human-computer interactions or loss of data have led to serious injury and death.”