76-year-old Alzheimer’s Patient Dies, Family Claims Malpractice

Medical Malpractice death: Medical malpractice covers a lot of errors or mistakes that occur in the medical field — although few victims or their families would refer to them in such a light manner. While many claims involve an overt action, some claims involve the failure to act.

After a 76-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s died in the care of nursing home, questions were asked and the answers began to uncover what seems like a very serious claim of medical malpractice.

According to the autopsy report, the elderly woman died on Jan. 28, 2011. Her death occurred only two days after taking a serious fall from her wheelchair, a fall that left her with a broken vertebra in her neck. The death itself raised questions of care, but so did the actions of the nursing home administrator.

According to a recent lawsuit filed by the elderly patient’s daughter against the nursing home and its staff, the administrator failed to notify the state health department of the injuries in a timely manner or provide timely evidence that the injuries had been investigated by the home.

It wasn’t a matter of minutes or hours in which the failure occurred. According to the wrongful death lawsuit, the administrator waited a total of seven days to report the death involving injuries of an unusual or suspicious death to the health department as required by law in the state where the death occurred.

Source: The Star Press, “Nursing home slow to report death,” Oct. 22, 2012 – “Medical Malpractice death”

Our law firm helps victims and their families find closure in medical malpractice cases in Connecticut whether they were caused by an action or a failure to act.