June 2011 Archives

A child has been awarded in a birth injury lawsuit after forceps used during birth lead to the child suffering from spinal cord injuries.

The child, who is now 10 years old, suffered from catastrophic birth injuries that were determined to be caused by forceps used by the doctor during delivery.

The child suffered a spinal cord injury during birth, which left him paralyzed from the neck down. The child is not able to breathe without the use a ventilator as a result of neurological injuries.

Because of his injuries, the child requires round-the-clock care which costs his parents hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

The family's birth injury lawsuit was settled out of court, and the family will receive payments from the hospital in which the child was born. The payments will help cover the cost of care that child will require for the rest of his life.

Medical malpractice can lead to injuries during birth, and the results can be devastating. If you believe that you have been a victim of medical malpractice, please contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce Fagel & Associates.

Click here to visit our website, or call us toll-free at 1-800-541-9376 to schedule a free legal consultation.

A nursing home is under heavy investigation after hidden camera video showed evidence of nursing home abuse against an elderly resident.

A criminal investigation as well as an investigation into the regulation of the nursing home have both been initiated following the release of the shocking hidden camera footage. In the footage, a nursing aide at the facility is seen striking the face of a 78-year-old elderly woman.

The elderly resident's son had accused the nursing home of abuse and negligence against his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. His complaints had been ignored by the nursing home, so he decided to take matters into his own hands by installing a hidden camera.

The resident's son had noticed marks and bruises on his mother, and claimed that she would raise her hands in a defensive manner when he tried to approach her. He installed the camera in her room and left a notice stating that it had been installed.

The footage shows not one but two nursing aids striking the elderly woman on separate occasions. In one of the videos, a nursing aid is seen striking the woman in the face as another employee of the nursing home watches and does nothing to intervene.

In perhaps the most violent and shocking of the videos, a nursing aid is seen shoving the elderly woman into her wheelchair and throwing her onto her bed. The employee is also seen shoving the elderly resident's face into the wall.

Two of the nursing aids were fired by the nursing home, while the other employee was disciplined for not reporting the abuse despite witnessing it. One of the employees has been charged with felony assault.

Family members trust nursing homes to provide excellent care to their elderly loved ones. It is unfortunate that sometimes abuse and negligence occurs in these facilities. If you believe that a loved one has been the victim of nursing home negligence or nursing home abuse, please contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce Fagel & Associates for a free legal consultation. Click here to visit our website or call us toll-free at 1-800-541-9376.

The state of Kentucky has secured a $3 million federal grant to help them with their fight against elder neglect and abuse in nursing homes. The grant will be used to pay for more intense background checks for potential employees.

Equipment for advanced fingerprinting will be purchased and extensive background checks will be given to verify that potential caregivers for the elderly have no criminal history before they become employees at nursing homes.

Current law only requires that nursing homes and long-term care facilities do background checks using only the potential employee's name, and that background check is only required if the employee wishes to provide direct care to elderly nursing home residents.

The fingerprints and background checks will be administered by the national organization known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The effort to fight nursing home abuse increased when a series of newspaper reports revealed that out of over a hundred significant citations for elder neglect and abuse filed over the span of three years, only a handful were prosecuted.

The new fingerprinting and extensive background checks will be given to applicants at nursing homes, long-term care facilities, home health agencies, and assisted living centers, among others.

Unfortunately, instances of nursing home abuse and negligence are steadily increasing nationwide. Reform such as this helps reduce elder neglect and abuse, but there is certainly more that should be done to combat such abuse.

If you believe that an elderly loved one has been the victim of neglect or abuse in a nursing home or other facility, contact Dr. Bruce Fagel today for a free legal consultation. Click here to contact us online, or call us toll-free at 1-800-541-9376.

Findings from a recently-released study suggest that patients are just as likely to be a victim of medical errors at a physician's office as they are at hospitals.

Researchers at a well-known U.S. medical school analyzed records from the U.S. National Practitioner Data Bank to compare medical malpractice claims paid by doctors and hospitals. Their studies found that half of the near-11,000 medical malpractice claims that were paid were a result of medical errors suffered in doctor's offices.

The other half of the medical malpractice payments were the result of medical errors in hospitals.

The study further showed that the most common type of medical errors in doctor's offices were misdiagnoses, while surgical mistakes were typically the cause of medical malpractice claims in hospitals.

Researchers behind the study say that the amount of effort put into reducing medical errors in hospitals is much more than efforts to reduce those in the offices of doctors and physicians. This is due to the fact that doctor's offices have typically not been the main focus of patient safety reform.

A great deal of medical errors can be the result of poor communication within or between different doctor and physician offices, according to the study.

If you believe that you have been a victim of medical malpractice due to an error at a doctor's office, hospital, or other medical facility, please contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce G. Fagel & Associates. You can click here to visit our website, or you can call us toll-free at 1-800-541-9376.

An investigation has been launched following the death of a nursing home resident, who was left chocking for nearly 20 minutes by a nurse.

A citation was given to a nursing home in Kentucky, prompting an investigation by the office of the attorney general. The investigation will determine if nursing home negligence is what led to the death of the elderly resident.

According to the citation that was filed, the inspector claimed that state regulations for nursing home safety had been violated resulting in a dangerous environment for those living in the nursing facility.

Records show that the now-deceased patient was admitted into the nursing home just ten days before the choking incident. The resident, who was on a diet that allowed for only pureed foods, was heard making gurgling noises by a member of the nursing home's staff.

The citation states that the staff member, a licensed practical nurse, entered the patient's room and asked the resident if she was choking to which she replied no. The nurse then left the room and did not inform any other members of the staff of the patient's condition. The patient was left alone in her room for nearly 20 minutes as the nurse cleaned a suctioning machine. Records show, however, that an emergency cart at the nursing home had already been equipped with a clean suctioning machine.

The nurse, according to the citation, re-entered the patient's room with the suctioning machine and began to suction the patient, but that failed to stop the patient's choking. A registered nurse was brought into the room and administered CPR after it was discovered that the patient still had a pulse. The patient was taken to the emergency room where she died, with the cause of death reported as aspiration pneumonia.

The citation is currently being investigated and could lead to prosecution. It will be interesting to see whether the family of the patient will decide to file a wrongful death lawsuit, as the circumstances surrounding the patient's death appear as though they could be related to medical malpractice.

If you believe a loved one has been the victim of nursing home abuse, neglect or medical malpractice, click here to contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce G. Fagel & Associates or call us toll-free at 1-800-541-9376 for a free legal consultation.

A couple has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against a hospital, claiming that the hospital is responsible for injuries their son suffered at birth.

The lawsuit states that a doctor's negligence resulted in their newborn child suffering birth injuries.

In their medical malpractice lawsuit, the family claims that a doctor who assisted in the delivery of their child back in March 2009 did not administer the delivery of the child properly. Their son's shoulder became stuck to the mother's pelvic bone during delivery, which resulted in a permanent injury to the newborn's shoulder, they claim.

The family is seeking compensation for their son's injuries and medical expenses related to what they claim was the doctor's negligent care during delivery.

Birth injuries are often the result of medical malpractice. If you believe that you have been a victim of medical malpractice, click here to contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce G. Fagel & Associates or call us toll-free at 800-541-9376 for a free consultation.

A jury has awarded a $7 million settlement in the case of 54-year-old woman whose family sued for wrongful death after a hospital stay for a routine procedure resulted in complications leading to her death.

Victoria Lynn Brown Harmon visited a hospital in the summer of 2007 to receive a hysterectomy. She stayed overnight after the procedure, and although she complained about experiencing pain, she was released the very next day.

Harmon returned to the hospital the same day she was released. Her family says that she was sitting in a chair when a sneeze caused her to experience pain. During her second visit to the hospital, it was discovered that her bowel had been perforated and that the pressure caused by the sneeze sent contents of her bowel into her abdomen.

A second doctor sent Harmon to the operating room for several procedures, but because the perforated bowel had gone untreated for so long, Harmon had suffered organ failure, including brain damage, as well as pneumonia and sepsis. She was placed on dialysis until her family and medical staff both agreed that her injuries were too severe to continue treatment.

The jury in the wrongful death case ruled that negligence by the doctor who performed the hysterectomy was indeed the cause of Harmon's death. The plaintiff's attorneys said that the doctor neglected to notice signs of inflammation, perforation and infection.

The doctor who assisted Harmon treated Harmon when she returned to the hospital was found not to be negligent.

If you suspect that death of loved one while under the care of a hospital or medical facility was caused by medical malpractice, click here to contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce G. Fagel & Associates or call us toll-free at 800-541-9376 for a free consultation.

A nursing home is at the center of a second investigation after a citizen documented nursing home abuse by recording a three minute video from her bedroom window.

The frightened neighbor of a North Carolina group home quietly peeked through the blinds and used a cellular phone to videotape an incident of nursing home physical abuse. The clip shows an employee of the nursing home shoving a patient, causing the patient to lose her balance and fall to the ground. It was later discovered that the abused patient was mentally ill.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has launched an investigation into the incident. The investigation, which was initiated after the home video documented the abuse, is the second in only two months for the private facility.

The neighbor of the facility pulled out her phone to record video after she heard screaming coming from the private nursing home next door. She quickly turned over the video to authorities. She says that after the investigation began, the nursing home added dark screening to the fences in order to block outside viewing and also moved an employee break area to another location out of the view of the public.

A previous investigation into the nursing home's negligence was launched after a staff member ignited a shrub fire in the facility's front yard. Neighbors also say that the nursing home has failed to keep a close watch on patients, as patients have managed to escape the home on several occasions.

Nursing home abuse such as what has occurred in this case is sadly all too common. If you believe a loved one has been the victim of nursing home abuse or negligence, contact the Law Offices of Dr. Bruce G. Fagel for a free consultation. Click here to visit our website, or give us a call toll-free at 1-800-541-9376.