The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in thousands of nursing home fatalities. Many deaths have been blamed on neglect and lack of proper care caused by understaffing and overwhelmed staff and caretakers.
Dying in the Shadows
Since the COVID pandemic began in 2020, more than 90,000 residents in U.S. nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died from the virus. Unfortunately, reports show that thousands more are still dying from lack of attention and proper care. With low staff levels and overworked caretakers, many nursing home residents are suffering in isolation and dying from neglect.
While keeping up with COVID patient demands in nursing homes, many residents have been neglected and left to die or suffer silently in the shadows. As facilities were left short-handed by infected workers and fewer caregivers, many residents suffered neglect and injuries from:
- Severe bedsores
- Soiled, unchanged diapers
- Unsanitary clothing and bedsheets
- Falls into hard objects
- Dehydration
- Starvation
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During the COVID pandemic, chronic under-staffing in nursing homes has been a continual problem seen by many nursing home lawyers. While many nursing home workers tested positive for the virus or called in sick with possible symptoms, other nursing homes were forced to evacuate residents or close their doors. In 20 states, one in four nursing homes reported staff shortages related to the pandemic.
As the pandemic spread, nursing homes implemented strict rules for visitation. Family members of residents were barred from in-person visits, so they could not check on their loved ones. They could no longer help with critical care for meals, bathing and grooming, dressing, and regular conversations and companionship.
Around the country, reports of suspicious deaths are on the rise. Loved ones of affected residents are reporting various signs of neglect and filing personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits with a nursing home lawyer. In many fatality cases, death certificates simply state “failure to thrive” as the cause of death.
Many deceased residents with “failure to thrive” on their death certificates showed signs of significant weight loss, a sign of severe dehydration and starvation. Additionally, physicians and medical experts reported that prolonged neglect and lack of basic care plunged many nursing home residents into a deep state of mental confusion, anxiety, and depression caused by isolation and despair which may have contributed to their “failure to thrive.” Nursing home lawyers are seeing many signs of severe neglect that caused residents to wither away, both physically and mentally.
