When Edward Monsour’s family left him in the care of the Manor Health Care Center in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2005 to recover from a fall, they thought he would rehabilitate, return home and re-establish himself as the family’s patriarch. However, a year later, Edward was still in the nursing home and was in far worse shape than when he entered. Ultimately, Edward left the nursing home to receive emergency care for bedsores and a large ulcer on his heel that had blackened from gangrene. A few weeks later, Edward died of sepsis, a bacterial blood infection.
Edwards’s family blamed the nursing home for the death. They said there was inadequate supervision, lack of staffing and an untrained wound care nurse who knew nothing about treating ulcers. Ultimately, they filed a complaint against the nursing home and a judge found the facility violated Nevada law when it failed to provide adequate care, causing pain and suffering to both the deceased and his family. The family was rewarded over $750,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, but no amount of money can replace the loss the family incurred.
This is just one of the many cases of an ever rising problem of elder abuse in Nevada. Between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, the Nevada State Division for Aging Services investigated 4,476 cases of elder abuse. The division’s elder abuse reporting system doesn’t distinguish abuse cases based on where they occurred. However, in the past six months, 188 cases have been reported to the agency involving elder abuse in nursing or group homes, said Kay Rogne, elder protective service program manager. Hopefully, nursing homes in Nevada and around the country will address the rising numbers of elder abuse and correct this serious problem.
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