When is a Nursing Home Liable for Negligent Hiring?
Nursing homes hire a diverse staff, including nurses, therapists, nursing aides, kitchen staff, and recreational workers. This staff interacts with residents every day. Unfortunately, some staff members are a danger to residents in a home. A careful nursing home should thoroughly vet any candidate before extending a job offer, but some facilities are desperate for staff. Contact Pita Weber Del Prado if you have questions about abuse or neglect in a nursing home. We might bring a legal claim against the facility directly for compensation.
What is Negligent Hiring?
Like all businesses, nursing homes owe a duty of care to their customers. The customers are the residents, who deserve adequate care during their stay.
Sadly, some employees abuse patients, and they might have a history of violent behavior. A nursing home should properly investigate a job applicant before hiring them.
For example, a nursing home should:
- Ask about prior jobs, including whether an applicant was disciplined for negligence or failing to care for patients.
- Perform a background check to find any criminal arrests or convictions.
- Follow up as appropriate to uncover more information from the applicant if there are questions about their fitness for a job.
- Contact references to discuss an applicant, including prior employers.
- Research any complaints made to a licensing board about a nurse or doctor.
If the nursing home uncovers red flags, they should investigate further or possibly not hire the applicant.
Many nursing homes are struggling to hire staff. Indeed, the media often reports of a “crisis” in health care employment, so some nursing homes overlook obvious red flags. A nursing home which is willfully blind is liable when one of their employees hurts a resident. For example, an applicant might have been arrested for sexual assault. That is a sign the worker should not be hired at a nursing home. If the home goes ahead and hires them and assault happens again, then the home is probably negligent.
Investigations and Discipline
Even after hiring staff, nursing homes must adequately supervise them. If there are complaints about abuse, then management should investigate and discipline appropriately. They should also fire a worker who is a danger to their residents.
Some nursing home administrators stick their heads in the sand and refuse to investigate complaints. They might simply call in a worker to discuss a complaint but not follow up or talk with other employees who might have seen inappropriate behavior.
Any nursing home that fails to investigate, discipline, or train staff is also liable for accidents. It is foreseeable that dangerous workers will not improve without the nursing home intervention.
Contact Our Office to Discuss Your Concerns
At Pita Weber Del Prado, we receive many calls from children of aging parents who are worried about the quality of care their loved ones are receiving. We can step in and begin an investigation into a facility if you have concerns. Any abuse can serve as the foundation for a legal claim for compensation. You can find out more by talking with a Miami nursing home abuse lawyer.
Source:
abcnews.com/US/pandemic-made-shortage-health-care-workers-worse-experts/story?id=77811713
