One of the reasons nursing home abuse is so rampant is because it is so easy to conceal. After all, the elderly are often unable to speak up for a number of reasons. If the nursing home itself fails to report certain acts of misconduct and negligence, then evidence may never truly surface. The possibility of no one finding out about nursing home abuse can be distressing for family members of senior patients, who put their trust in staff members without any guarantees. Unfortunately, sometimes our worst fears are proven correct and it becomes clear that abuse really was occurring behind closed doors without anyone’s knowledge.
How is Nursing Home Abuse Concealed?
Discovering evidence of this abuse can be shocking, to say the least, but you can take action. By getting in touch with an elder law attorney in New Jersey, you can approach this difficult situation with confidence in order to bring negligent parties to justice. In addition, you can receive a considerable financial settlement for all of the damages you have been forced to endure.
Sedating Seniors
One of the easiest ways to cover up abuse is to sedate seniors – to the point where they can no longer complain, protest, or even ask for help. In some cases, staff members intentionally misdiagnose perfectly healthy seniors, prescribing them with powerful medications that they never even needed in the first place. This is of course all part of a ploy to keep seniors obedient, sedated, and more likely to accept poor living conditions. This blatant and illegal misconduct is surprisingly common in the United States today.
Government Cover-Ups
We also know that the government has been complicit in the cover-up of nursing home abuse on numerous occasions in the past, particularly during the pandemic. The most well-known example is former governor Cuomo, who attempted to conceal the extent to which seniors were dying in nursing homes during the initial phases of the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, Cuomo admitted to withholding certain data that showed that a considerable number of people were dying in nursing homes during this period. If this data had been more readily available, perhaps action could have been taken to save lives.
Failing to File Reports
Another deceptively simple way to conceal abuse has to do with filing incident reports. All nursing homes are required to create and keep incident reports whenever abuse occurs, but there is no real oversight in place. A nursing home could simply decide not to document instances of abuse, and no one would ever know that they occurred.
Enlist the Help of a Qualified Attorney Today
If you have been searching for an experienced elder law attorney in New Jersey, look no further than Giro Law, LLP, Attorneys at Law. With our assistance, you can not only uncover evidence of nursing home abuse, but you can also hold guilty parties accountable, suing them for this unforgivable act. Book your consultation today, and you can take your first steps toward justice and a fair settlement for everything your family has been forced to endure.