Medical Malpractice: Proving Negligence Or Abuse In Facilities And Nursing Homes

In our last article, we discussed defined Elder Law and various legal areas it covers. In this article, we’ll focus on medical malpractice how to prove abuse and negligence in assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

Putting your elderly loved ones in assisted living facilities and nursing homes is tough enough without having to worry about them not only receiving poor care. But what if it’s worse? They may have actually suffered from negligent and abusive behavior. This could lead to medical malpractice lawsuit.

Medical providers in assisted living facilities, nursing homes and hospitals are required to provide a high degree of care to the patients that trusted them to provide personal medical services.

If they healthcare providers are negligent, victimized patients may file medical malpractice lawsuits.

Medical malpractice falls under the category of personal injury law.  In a medical malpractice lawsuit, the defendant must be a medical provider who must have breached their duty of care while providing medical care to the plaintiff (the patient).

Duty of care means that a patient has the right to receive a certain medical treatment that would have been considered reasonable by any other medical provider who had the same education and skill level under the same circumstances.

Usually it’s fairly straightforward to prove that the facility the patient stayed at was under contract to owe the patient duty of care.

What is sometimes more difficult to prove is that the nursing home, assisted living facility or hospital breached their duty of care. In court, to prove that a medical provider breached their duty of care and did not provide a reasonable standard of care to their patient, the plaintiff’s attorney will often call up witnesses, who are other medical professionals in the same field, to testify, and reveal what care they would have provided under the same specific circumstances.

Once a breach of duty of care is established, the patient must then prove that injury resulted from this breach of duty of care. Additionally, the patient must have also suffered damages because of the breach of duty of care and injury. This could be loss of wages from injury, or additional medical bills, or emotional trauma.

It’s important to seek the advice of a knowledgeable personal injury attorney who has experience in the medical malpractice sphere.