Manor Care Wrongful Death Case On Trial
Betty Wolfe was sent to Heartland of Charleston, a Manor Care, Inc. facility in Charleston, West Virgina, to receive physical therapy and recuperate from surgery. She wasn't supposed to die.
Ms. Wolfe was, by doctor's order, to be assisted to go to the restroom. Instead, the overworked staff insisted she wear diapers. When Ms. Wolfe tried to follow doctor's orders anyway, she fell. The fall led to her placement in a bed where it was difficult for her to get out. The nursing home staff did not change her diaper timely, sometimes making Betty lie in her own waste for hours on end. Several times, she was found wet from her neck to her feet. The constant saturation lead to infected pressure sores on her tailbone which the staff also failed to treat properly or timely.
Ms. Wolfe's family alleges the facility was frequently understaffed and experienced a 150% turnover rate among the nurses and staff. The workers who were there frequently often had to work double shifts. The employees were not properly trained and were overwhelmed with work. The defense counters that Ms. Wolfe "was on a downward slope" when she transferred to Heartland of Charleston. The defense also suggested that Ms. Wolfe had several long standing medical issues, such as high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and chronic urinary tract infections.
This creates the question: do long standing medical issues give a facility a right not to provide quality of care and quality of life and basic poor care? To read more on this story, go to Trial Begins in Nursing Home Case
