Burn Injury Attorney - Elder Scalds and Burn Neglect
Burn Injury Attorney. Burns to residence in nursing homes, assisted living and memory care facilities happen in several ways. The injuries are either due to some form of hot or scalding or water or some environmental factor in their room such as a stand-alone heater, radiator, heating blanket or furnace. Burns can also result from fires in the resident’s room or in the building. Burns also occur to residents from smoking, from lighters and from oxygen explosions when a cigarette or lighter sets off a resident’s oxygen tank.
Burns are extremely pain and can be very serious catastrophic injuries and result in death. Any risk factors for fires, burning or scalding should be taken seriously by the care provider and interventions taken to make sure the residents are safe.
According to federal regulations at 42 CFR 483.25, (d) Accidents. The facility must ensure that—
(1) The resident environment remains as free of accident hazards as is possible; and
(2) Each resident receives adequate supervision and assistance devices to prevent accidents.
Burn Injures Are Prevented By Eliminating Foreseeable Risks
According the Medicare / Medicaid CMS State Operations Manual (SOM). The factors they consider for compliance with federal regulations for accident prevention include:
- Identify and eliminate all known and foreseeable accident hazards in the resident’s environment, to the extent possible; or
- To the extent possible, reduce the risk of all known or foreseeable accident hazards that cannot be eliminated; or
- Provide appropriate and sufficient supervision to each resident to prevent an avoidable accident; or
- Provide assistance devices necessary to prevent an avoidable accident from occurring.
Any example of this type of safety measure would be making sure a resident does not have cigarettes and a lighter to smoke unless the oxygen is off and the smoker safety vest is placed on the resident.
Most forms of burns, fires, oxygen explosion, hot water and steam risks are preventable with proper policies and attention.
Contact an Experienced Attorney to Discuss Your Burn Injury Case
If you have concerns about any form of burn injuries, including scalding and hot water burns or other care issues in a nursing home or assisted living facility contact attorney Kenneth LaBore for a free consultation at 612-743-9048.
