Legal Question in Elder Law in Florida

I have been worrying about my mother's weekend caregivers in her nursing home because of a pattern of bruising and skin tears and what appear to be scratches. She now has wounds that have dressins on 3 of her 4 limbs. The more I brought it to the administrator's attention and made complaints and actually had a nurse supervisor take a statement from my mother about her being handled roughly, the worse my mother's injuries were getting.

She spent 24 hours in the ER beginning going twice in in a 24 hour span... Starting on Sunday July 22nd. My mom almost died Monday night after her injuries. She is 93, weighs 100 lbs and is very frail.

She was "dropped" by the CNA, who in her own words told me my mother fought her. She seemed unconcerned about my mother welfare even as my mom was being picked up by an ambulance at midnight being transported to the ER! The nurse on duty initially told me "they found my mother on the floor", when I arrived 10 minutes after their call to me, the story had changed a bit. The CNA told me herself my mother slipped from her hands.

There have been blatant lies written in my mother's records by staff regarding the nature of the deep scratch marks and cuts on her arm, saying that it was an existing wound that was reopened. I found purple bruises on either side of her face, like someone had grabbed her jaw. Finger print bruises on her arms and very deep blue/black bruises on her leg that may end up as open wounds. The latest assault almost killed her. There were two large gashes on her head, a deep scratch on her right knee which looked like a thumb-sized finger nail gouge. A 4" skin tear on her left calf , two large skin tears on her right arm (which were inflicted the night before) and two large protruding hematomas on the right side of her head. The ER nurse said that my mother told her the injuries were because of a staff member who had handled her very roughly.

The majority of the staff has been wonderful and my mother initially thrived at this facility. But the weekend, 11:00 pm to 7:00am staff are hurting her. Each of the last 3 weekends her injuries have gotten worse.

My complaints to the administrator and nurse supervisors were not followed up with any answers to me or any plan of action on their part to prevent further injuries to my mother.

She is currently in the hospital and I am afraid to bring her back to this facility after what has just happened.

I suspect one or two employees on the weekends are hurting her. My mother told me and another nurse at the facility that she had been handled very rough and told the worker to stop hurting her, that the CNA was being mean, my mother said that when she complained, the rough treatment got worse.

My last meeting with the administrator left me with little confidence that they are interested in anything but protecting themselves from being blamed for my mother's injuries.

After I put my mother to bed in her room Sunday night, I told the nurse supervisor that I did not want the CNA from the previous night (who had reported a false statement about a re-opening of a wound on my Mom's arm) to be allowed to care for my mother ever again. The nurse supervisor agreed to honor my concerns, however that CNA WAS allowed back in my mother's room via the director of nursing and that is the CNA who said my mother slipped from her hands which resulted in my mother's life threading fall.

Are there laws against putting a camera in my mother's room?

I once took a photo of an injury to my mother's leg and the director of nursing found me days after i had snapped the photo told me I was not allowed to take pictures in the facility. I was surprised and said it was of my mother's leg not anyone else!

I am thinking they are more concerned about lawsuits than the safety of their residents.

Thank you,

Nan Gorecki

310-801-8892

Sent from my iPad

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