Do Assisted Living Facility accept Aggressive Residents?
Your Mom or Dad Could Become a Victim
The Residential Care Facility for the Elderly industry is becoming big business in their quest to fill beds. And oftentimes their quest to fill beds is to the detriment of other residents’ safety. In a recent story out of Florida, an assisted living facility accepted a 52-year-old resident who was caught on video punching an 86 year old dementia resident over the course of more than two minutes. Staff was nowhere to be seen, thus staff did not keep the 86 year old resident safe. In fact, staff did not show up until after the 52-year-old resident punched the 86 year old dementia resident over 50 times. Here is a video of this assisted living facility that captured the two-minute assault by aggressive residents with no staff supervision.
This video demonstrates multiple potential failures for an assisted living facility. First, the danger of understaffing a facility, resulting in a lack of care and supervision of multiple residents. A facility has a legal obligation to adequately staff their facilities to provide adequate care and supervision. Second, assisted living facilities should not accept or retain residents that pose a danger to other residents.
Unfortunately, it is becoming big business to open an assisted living facility and fill the beds without putting resident safety first. Further, assisted living facilities are not regulated to the same degree as skilled nursing facilities. For example, in California, assisted living facilities are only required to be inspected by the Department of Social Services once every five years unless there is a complaint investigation.
Wendy York and the team at York Law Firm have been representing elderly residents who have been abused or neglected as a part of their elder abuse practice for almost 20 years. If you believe your loved one has been the victim of elder abuse or neglect in a nursing home or assisted living facility, or believe your family has a wrongful death claim, please call our office so that we can investigate your case at 916-643-2200 or contact us. We are dedicated to representing families whose elders and dependent adults who have been injured, neglected or abused.