It was an agonizing decision to place your loved one in a nursing home. Still, you believe that it was the best decision that you could make since their dementia required a level of caregiving that you were ill-equipped to provide.
Then, you started noticing that your elderly parent seemed to always be suffering from bedsores. Before one could fully heal, there would be another open wound on their body from the pressure of remaining too long in one position.
Make no mistake — the presence of bedsores is a sign of neglect in a nursing home. Left untreated, they can fester and worsen, in some cases leaving bone exposed.
Bedsores can also kill residents of nursing homes, especially those who are too weakened by their conditions to be able to fight off the infection. If you notice bedsores on a resident, you should address that to their caregivers.
It may be that the facility is chronically short-staffed and the hardworking aides and nurses are doing their best, but to no avail. That demands an administrative fix, e.g., hiring more staff for each shift so residents regularly get repositioned frequently enough to deter the formation of decubitus ulcers (bedsores).
But it also could be that the staff is intentionally neglecting the residents. Maybe they are just phoning it in at work for the paycheck or perhaps they lack the necessary training to be on the alert for this common problem. Either way, your loved one is the one who has to pay for this egregious lack of care.
It might be necessary to seek legal action in order to rectify the situation and get your loved one the level of care that they need.
