Mentally Ill Mixed in With Nursing Homes
Mentally Ill Mixed in With Nursing Homes
The Chicago Tribune recently ran a story explaining a hearing that would soon take place in Chicago regarding nursing home safety. However, this future hearing will not involve the standard discussion on how staff members should remain patient and attentive to patients’ needs. This hearing will try and discover solutions to rising crime statistics taking place in nursing homes. Abuse of the elderly not only happens because of professional negligence but can also happen as the direct result of patient-to-patient violence.
Is this type of nursing home abuse common? Indeed, it is rare to hear of a case of nursing home patients attacking one another. However, what if a nursing home were to mix in mentally ill patients at their nursing home with aging residents? This is hardly a fair-fetched notion. In fact, this practice has led to increasing number of assaults, rapes and even murders.
This story complements a story on MSNBC. A man by the name of Russell Smith related the story of his stepfather, a 77-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who was assaulted by a mentally ill roommate 30 years his junior. Though the roommate only smashed the patient’s face with a clock radio, it was enough to splatter blood all over the ceiling of the room and to kill Smith’s stepfather.
Is this an isolated incident of mixing in mentally ill patients at a nursing home one might ask? Not according to MSNBC, which reported, “Younger mentally ill people now make up more than 9 percent of the nation's nearly 1.4 million nursing home residents.” Often these younger residents are suffering from major disorders such as schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder. While these individuals are victims just as much as anyone, a mentally ill person in the prime of his physical life and a frail senior citizen is simply a dangerous mismatch. Sometimes the mentally ill are prone to throw fits of rage and can very easily turn on the closest person in their proximity. MSNBC also stated there was a 41 percent increase of these “mixed” nursing homes. Coincidentally, the five states showed the most unsettling increases in this regard were Utah, Nevada, Missouri, Alabama and Texas.
U.S. News and World Report speculated on the cause of these increasing instances of nursing home abuse: a shuttering of state mental institutions, shortage in the beds of psychiatric units and a reduction in the beds of seniors in nursing homes, who are becoming healthier and more independent.
Remember if your aging relative has been severely injured because of nursing home abuse it is not his fault. The nursing home has an obligation to protect your parent when you surrender her to their care. Failing to see the potential threat that could result from living with a mentally ill roommate is a negligent act on the part of the nursing home company.
If your relative has suffered because of the appearance of mentally ill patients at a nursing home, and you need elder abuse help then give the Rasansky Law Firm a call at 1-877-405-4313. Get a free consultation today and take a stand to help your family.
THE RASANSKY LAW FIRM
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Dallas, Texas 75201
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