Rockville Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer

Filing a Lawsuit Against a Rockville Nursing Home? Our Maryland Attorney Can Help

Our Rockville nursing home negligence attorney can assist you with your claim stemming from bed sores, broken bones or wrongful death.

At Senior Justice Law Firm, our firm focus is on nursing home abuse. We can help your family get answers, achieve justice and right the wrong caused by the Rockville nursing home’s neglect of your loved one.

Call us now for a free Rockville nursing home abuse case consultation: 202-899-3111.

If you prefer typing over talking, please live chat with our office using the chat feature on this page.

Rockville, Maryland is Experiencing a Boom in Long Term Care Facility Construction

When you or a loved one consider the ideal place to retire, it’s likely that Maryland is high on the list. The Rockville area in particular is home to numerous nursing homes and assisted living facilities which cater to Maryland’s senior citizen population. Between the comfortable climate and the hundreds of historical towns that dot the state, many retirees are discovering that the secret to a happy and enjoyable retirement can be found in Maryland. This is true of Rockville and Montgomery County. Due to its recent popularity among retirees, Rockville has recently seen a growth in new nursing homes and assisted living facilities, built to meet the rising demand for long term care housing.

Rockville Nursing Homes Often Receive Sub-Par Ratings

However, many nursing homes around Rockville have found it difficult to properly care for their residents, and there have been a significant number of cases of elder abuse, neglect, and pain and suffering. Some of the facilities surrounding Rockville have even made their way onto a list that the federal government maintains of nursing homes cited for confirmed cases of abuse. Although the long-term care facility that your loved one resides in may not have any citations or mainly positive reviews, it is impossible to be sure that they are completely safe from neglect.

Chat with Our Rockville Nursing Home Neglect Law Firm Now

If you believe that someone you love at a Rockville nursing home has suffered abuse or neglect, contact Senior Justice Law Firm at 202-899-3111, or live chat with our office today using the chat feature.

As nursing home abuse attorneys in the Rockville area, we are exclusively dedicated to prosecuting nursing home abuse cases for our clients. We seek to hold abusive and neglectful nursing homes accountable for their actions through financial compensation for the abuse victims and their families. With offices in Washington DC and Baltimore, we are well equipped to prosecute nursing home negligence cases in Rockville, Gaithersburg, Potomac and Bethesda. If you are unable to come to our offices, we will come meet you in the Rockville area.

Despite Rapid Growth, Rockville Nursing Homes Remain Lackluster

Rockville has experienced a recent boom in popularity, mainly due to the picturesque nature of the town and surrounding countryside. Walking the accessible trails at the Civic Center Park and enjoying the sights in the Rockville town square provide ways to engage with other locals, and the downtown area offers plenty of opportunities for dining and window shopping.

Tucked among gems like the Mayorga Organics Roastery (known for their sustainable and delicious coffee) and the Meadowside Nature Center (home to a bald eagle, an indoor center, and walking trails) are the nursing homes that have sprung up to fulfill the need for senior housing in the area.

In total, the larger Rockville area boasts 87 nursing homes, all eager to serve the booming community of retirees in the area. Unfortunately, these facilities seem to be unable to provide consistent quality care and have obtained a wide range of inspection scores. Some of these homes have been placed into the federal database for confirmed abuse cases, and the most common score they have received is a 1 out of 5, the lowest possible.

Spotting Abusive and Negligent Facilities in Montgomery County, Maryland

In Rockville, nursing homes typically score well below average on the government’s mandatory health inspection. One of the main causes for this is that a majority of these facilities are run by for-profit institutions, who place their desire for a profit above the quality of care they give their residents.

This can help account for the low number of staff they employ and the high number of beds per facility, which both contribute to staff members being responsible for the care of far more residents than is reasonable—sometimes as many as 30, when the optimal number of seniors for a staff member is no more than four.

If you have reason to believe that someone you love may have experienced neglect in a nursing home and suffered pain, suffering, injury, or death at the hands of the workers who were supposed to be caring for them, you may be wondering about the next steps to take. One important thing you can do to help begin the process is to document any signs of abuse or neglect you’ve seen. Although negligent injuries are not always visible, a number of common ones are, such as:

• Bedsores – Bed sores are one of the most common and clearly marked signs of abuse in a long-term care facility. Absolutely nothing besides direct neglect will lead to these injuries, so they can serve as a strong indicator that the nursing home is at fault. These sores form when extended pressure is placed on a certain area of the patient’s skin over time due to lying in the same position. They are easily preventable by repositioning the patient—which a nurse or staff member should be doing every few hours—but the chronic understaffing of nursing homes often leads to this step being ignored. Besides being extremely painful, bed sores can cause further problems beyond just the characteristic ulcer-like lesions on the skin (often on the elbows, shoulders, and tailbone). Due to the open nature of the injury, these can lead to infections like MRSA and sepsis, which can prove to be fatal.
• Falls– If the next time you visit your loved one, you notice that they have unexplained injuries, falls may be the culprit. There are easy measures a nursing home can take to minimize and prevent falls, such as removing hazards that could cause tripping and other locations that could potentially cause a fall (such as slippery floors, uneven carpet, high doorframes, and beds without railings). If a nursing home does not take preventive measures to minimize injuries like falling, broken bones, and brain bleeds (also known as subdural hematomas), the home is at fault and must be held liable for their actions.
• Malnutrition/dehydration– Often, the most innocent behaviors can cause the greatest dangers for nursing home residents. Choking and things “going down the wrong pipe” (aspiration pneumonia) pose a consistent danger to seniors in nursing homes. These things most commonly occur when staff do not take sufficient time to assist the residents while they eat and drink. When this is combined with the mobility issues that many residents face, which can make consuming food and drink a difficult chore, it is easy to see how malnutrition and dehydration can become common when residents are left to eat and drink unassisted. Similarly, when the kitchen is understaffed, it can lead to workers not having enough time to prepare the special meals that certain residents require, and residents who require assistance with eating and drinking may be left on their own. Unfortunately, this can lead to the resident not eating or drinking anything, which in turn can result in malnutrition, starvation, dehydration, and even death.
• Physical and sexual abuse– It may be difficult to believe that it is possible for your loved one to experience physical or sexual abuse at a nursing home. After all, the nursing staff’s primary job is protecting and caring for your loved ones with respect, and it can be shocking to learn that these types of abuse can be a real possibility. Even the most careful of background checks may fail when a frustrated and exhausted staff member takes out their anger on an uncooperative resident. There is also the possibility that other residents may be contributing to this problem as well. When residents have memory or cognition issues, they often struggle to find appropriate ways to interact with other residents. It is the responsibility of the nursing home to quash this behavior, and if they fail to do so, they may be liable for abuse and neglect lawsuits.

Should I File a Nursing Home Abuse Lawsuit in Rockville?

If you are ready to take the next step and are considering filing a lawsuit against a Maryland nursing home, you may have second thoughts, since a lawsuit can never bring back more time to spend with your loved one. However, the most effective way to hold these homes accountable and ensure change is to seek money damages. This dissuades nursing homes from allowing the negligent act to occur in the future.

A Rockville nursing home neglect claim hits nursing homes where it really hurts: their profits. It is important to remember that since so many nursing homes are focused on their profits, seeking monetary compensation in the form of damages is the most effective way to both punish them and effect change. Your actions will ensure that the facility will change their methods in the future to avoid further lawsuits, and this in turn will benefit other residents at the long-term care location.

Nursing Homes in Rockville, MD

Rockville Nursing Home News

Recently, Maryland has been struggling to meet the growing demand across the state for nursing home facilities. Many homes have been fined in excess of millions of dollars, and facilities statewide can be susceptible to the common nursing home mindset of profit over patient care.

These situations have not gone unnoticed by the federal government. Gloria Jarmon, head of the inspector general’s audit division, says that “mandatory reporting is not always happening, and beneficiaries deserve to be better protected.” Among Medicare patients, 18% of emergency room visits coming from a nursing facility raised red flags. It can be easy for a nursing home to sweep a case of discovered neglect under the rug and to explain it away as a more innocent injury.

These unethical practices and consistent focus on profit, rather than quality care for residents, have become a trend in Maryland and across the country. In some instances, the facilities responsible for enabling elder abuse and neglect have been permanently closed, and the former administrators of these homes have been banned from opening any new long-term care facilities.

Free Attorney Consultation for Rockville Nursing Home Abuse

Sometimes, when it comes time to file a lawsuit against a nursing home in Rockville and the surrounding area, you might not know where to start and feel a bit overwhelmed. Contact Senior Justice Law Firm; we would be happy to guide you through the process. It can be extremely difficult to deal with a claim after the recent death or injury of someone you love, so let us simplify the process for you and help you receive the compensation and justice you deserve.

The focus of our firm is elder abuse law, so we are uniquely qualified to deal with nursing home neglect cases. Our resources and experience enable us to hold these facilities accountable for their actions and secure you the compensation that you are entitled to. Reaching out to discuss your situation with us is completely free, and we’ll speak about the specific evidence of your case and other details of your situation.

Let Our Rockville Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Guide You on Your Journey to Justice

You can contact our law firm by using our chat feature, or by submitting your information below. We are also available by phone at 202-899-3111.

Rockville Nursing Home Neglect Lawyer