{"id":493233,"date":"2010-03-31T11:42:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T15:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutlawsuits.com\/?p=9349"},"modified":"2010-03-31T11:42:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T15:42:58","slug":"philadelphia-nursing-home-bedsore-lawsuit-results-in-6m-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/493233","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Nursing Home Bedsore Lawsuit Results in $6M Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Philadelphia jury awarded $6 million in damages earlier this month in a wrongful death bedsore lawsuit<\/a> filed against a nursing home and hospital, including $5 million in punitive damages for the facilities’ willful or reckless disregard for the well-being of others.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed by the widow of Joe N. Blango, a former resident of Hillcrest Convalescent Home, in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, who died in 2008 of complications from bedsores<\/a> after being released from Jeanes Hospital. The family accused both facilities of failing to detect and treat the bedsores<\/a> which resulted in Blango\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The Common Please Court jury awarded the plaintiff, Shirley Blango, $1 million in damages in early March. According to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a>, a punitive damage award of $5 million was returned two weeks later, which are extremely rare in nursing home negligence lawsuits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The family alleged that medical staff at Jeanes Hospital treated Blango for a week in May 2006, but failed to diagnose that he was suffering from a urinary tract infection, leaving him susceptible to further injury. He was transferred to Hillcrest Convalescent Home to recover, where he stayed for two weeks. After his condition worsened, he was returned to the hospital for further treatment. He was released three days later by Jeanes Hospital to return home. The lawsuit claims that both facilities failed to diagnose the bedsores that eventually killed him.<\/p>\n

In addition, the lawsuit says that Blango\u00a0suffered from malnourishment<\/a>\u00a0and lost 28 pounds during the ordeal. His wife cared for him for two years, but he failed to recover from the bedsores, the suit claims.<\/p>\n

Jeanes Hospital is owned by Temple University Health System, which has said that it plans to appeal the verdict.<\/p>\n

Bedsores, also known as pressure sores or decubitus ulcers, occur as a result of a lack of blood flow to an area of the skin caused by prolonged pressure on one area of the body. They most often develop in places with prominent bones beneath thin layers of skin, such as the heels, elbows and tailbone. The open sores often afflict nursing home residents and hospital patients with limited mobility who have trouble, or are unable, to move independently.<\/p>\n

Most medical organizations consider bed sores to be a preventable condition<\/a> that are easily treated if detected early through proper diligence on the part of medical staff and care providers. Failure to prevent, identify, or properly treat bedsores can result in life-threatening infections that enter the bloodstream, known as sepsis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Philadelphia jury awarded $6 million in damages earlier this month in a wrongful death bedsore lawsuit filed against a nursing home and hospital, including $5 million in punitive damages for the facilities’ willful or reckless disregard for the well-being of others.\u00a0 The lawsuit was filed by the widow of Joe N. Blango, a former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}