Little Rock Nursing Home Abuse Attorney

When looking for signs of potential nursing home abuse or neglect in an Arkansas facility, your first resource should be the residents themselves. They are the patients inside the facility and they are the ones who are coming into close contact with care providers, nurses, and staff. Therefore, it’s important to note a few of the top complaints that residents have about nursing homes in general:

• Slow response to calls
• Poorly prepared food
• Inadequate staffing
• Inattention to detail (water out of reach, call light out of reach, etc.)

Three out of the four of those (slow response, inadequate staffing, and inattention to detail) stand out as potential indicators of serious problems within the facility. Indeed, these could point to inadequacies that could present life-threatening situations in the future.

As an outsider, it may not always be easy to spot nursing home abuse. Many times, the individual inside the home will not voluntarily report abuse for a variety of reasons (not even to loved ones). In fact, multiple studies have found that older individuals in any living situation do not voluntarily report abuse. That’s why it’s important to always look for the following signs. YOU are their eyes and ears, so pay attention when you’re visiting and speak up if you notice the signs:

• Unexplained Bruises, Cuts, and Broken Bones
• Bedsores
• Dirty Clothing & Soiled Bedding
• Depression, Anxiety, or Unexplained Emotional Changes
• Sudden Fearfulness
• Missing Valuables
• Refusing Visitors
• Dementia Symptoms
• Unexplained Weight Loss

So now you know a few of the symptoms of neglect and abuse, how do you tell the difference between the two?

Neglect is defined as a failure to provide for the daily needs of a nursing home resident. These needs include food, medicine, bathing, upkeep of living conditions, and more. These needs are all basic and nursing home staff members are inherently charged with seeing to those needs in a reasonable and timely manner. Failure to do so could legally be deemed neglect.

Abuse is the physical, emotional, sexual, or financial exploitation of an individual. Abuse could take the form of physical violence (grabbing or shaking an individual), but it could also take the form of constantly yelling at or berating a resident. Many times this abuse is perpetrated with intent and malice by one or more bad actors within a nursing home population (caregivers, maintenance staff, administrators, or even visiting specialists).

While abuse—on the face of it—may seem like a more pronounced danger to a nursing home resident, neglect can have serious life-threatening consequences as well and can often be harder to spot.

The root cause of all neglect is the failure of a responsible individual to do their duty to protect an elderly individual. However, there may be more factors that contribute to that failure than just the perpetrator’s carelessness. Indeed, especially in “industrialized” nursing home settings in Arkansas, there can often be multiple stressors placed on individual caregivers by the way the home is operated.

Inadequate Staffing—this can contribute to individual staffers being so overworked that an elderly person’s needs are overlooked simply because there isn’t enough time in a caregiver’s shift to address them. This can also lead to caregivers cutting corners and failing to work at company, state, and federally-accepted standards in order to meet tightened timelines.

Lack of Accountability—if individual caregivers don’t feel that their supervisors have a vested role in the level of care given to every resident, the standards of care may begin to drop. If minor violations are not spotted, corrected, and/or punished, they may grow into major violations.

Poor Maintenance—if the facilities or equipment are not maintained in working order, it may be difficult or close to impossible for even the most dedicated caregiver to deliver the level of care that’s expected or required.

Not every instance of neglect or abuse will result in legal action. There are certain criteria that can be met to pursue a lawsuit. Indeed, it’s often cases that involve:

• Negligent personal supervision and care
• Negligent hiring, training, and retention of employees
• Negligent maintenance of the premises or equipment
• Or direct assault and/or battery

When cases of nursing home abuse or neglect result in a lawsuit, they are often very serious and likely have created life-threatening or life-altering situations within the home setting.

However, that doesn’t mean that comparatively minor cases shouldn’t be reported. While they may not result in legal action, they could very well result in official sanctions, changes to staffing or procedures, re-education of administrators, or other significant alterations that could greatly improve the level of care given to residents of the nursing home in question.

There are multiple agencies at multiple levels of state and federal government that oversee various areas of nursing home operation in Arkansas. These agencies include:

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
• The Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services
• Arkansas Attorney General’s Office

However, the best way to research nursing homes or to report suspected violations is to contact the state government (either the DHHS or the Arkansas Attorney General—see below for contact info).

As you may suspect, having read the above paragraphs, not every report of nursing home abuse or neglect in Arkansas results in a lawsuit. So what does happen when abuse or neglect is reported?

Arkansas has a very specific response to allegations of nursing home abuse and neglect involving officials from multiple agencies within the state government. These agencies include the Attorney General’s office and The Office of Long Term Care (which is a division of The Department of Health and Human Services).

Every allegation will result in some form of investigation. Such investigations often include interviews with the reporting individual (unless anonymous), the resident(s) of a facility, staff members, administrators, and perhaps even the corporate management.

If allegations of criminal activity (like theft or assault) are involved, detectives from the local police agency or sheriff’s department will likely be involved as well.

The investigation will often conclude with recommendations to rectify the specific problems that are uncovered. However, if the victim or their family members don’t feel that the problem has been adequately addressed, a lawsuit could be the next logical step.

The answer to that depends on the severity of the problem. If you see signs of abuse or neglect that could immediately endanger the life of nursing home residents (such as visible wounds), you should call 911. Emergency medical services will be summoned and the endangered individual will receive proper medical care.

You can:

• Call the Attorney General’s Medicaid fraud hotlines at (866) 810-0016
• Report incidents to The Office of Long Term Care via:
  • Phone: 1-(800) 582-4887
  • Fax: (501) 682-8540, Attention Complaint Unit
  • E-mail: complaints.OLTC@arkansas.gov
  • Letter: Complaints Unit, Office of Long Term Care, P.O. Box 8059, Slot S407, Little Rock, AR 72203-8059
• Contact your local Area Agency on Aging’s Long Term Care Ombudsman for advocacy services (find your local agency here)