Citizen Jury Finds a Georgia Nursing Home Negligent for Inadequate Care
Sixty-seven year old Melvin Raybon needed skilled nursing care in 2002 after losing a portion of his brain to cancer. His daughter was caring for her mother, who was dying of breast cancer at the time, and could not manage all of her father’s needs. She entrusted her father to the care of Tucker Nursing Center.
Despite his daughter’s repeated requests to the nursing home to improve its care, within nine months he was hospitalized for a bedsore that went through his buttock all the way to the bone. One authority says the following about bedsores: “Pressure sores are graphic, ugly, smelly evidence of health care providers’ failure to take good enough care of the elderly.”
Mr. Raybon never fully recovered. His condition deteriorated. He suffered and died in June, 2004.
Mr. Raybon’s family suspected that Tucker Nursing Center had not cared for him properly, so they retained an attorney. Experts recommend that nursing staff turn an incapacitated patient every two hours to prevent pressure sores (bedsores).
Attorneys discovered that Mr. Raybon was only turned every four hours. It was little wonder that Mr. Raybon developed pressure sores. Attorneys for the family found no less than four certified nursing assistants from Tucker Nursing Center who testified that Mr. Raybon did not receive the care that he should have.
A DeKalb County jury, composed of members of the community, heard the evidence of the physical pain and extra medical treatment that Mr. Raybon endured as a result of the nursing home’s negligence. The citizens on the jury found that the nursing home was negligent and found $1,250,000.00 was the proper measure of damages suffered by Mr. Raybon as a result of the Tucker Center’s inadequate care.
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