Unsupervised Residents Can Get Shocks and Burns

The electrical equipment in nursing homes is needed to keep residents as healthy as possible.  Machines including heart monitors, respirators, IV pumps, and other medical equipment run on electricity, so it is important that the nursing home your loved one is in has solid wiring and can handle the strain of a lot of equipment being used at once.  When residents are neglected, they may experience burns by touching the equipment when they’re not supposed to or having a faulty piece of equipment malfunction and cause a fire.  While having a faulty piece of medical equipment is not intentional and may have not been discovered by staff members, the lack of resident supervision is what makes getting burned on equipment they are not supposed to be near a type of neglect for residents.  When they go unsupervised, residents may touch hot machinery that is supposed to be off limits or may touch electrical outlets, leading to shocks and possible burns depending on the current.  Nursing home employees need to be sure residents are supervised at all times to make sure that they cannot get near equipment that is off limits or burn themselves by touching electrical outlets.  When this supervision is not in place, residents have a greater chance of getting burned and experiencing the complications of a burn.  In addition to the burned skin, other tissues may have been affected so infection from a burn is a great possibility if the resident is neglected and proper wound care does not take place.  If your loved one was been burned due to neglect, contact a Riverside nursing home abuse attorney for advice and guidance in handling the situation and taking action against the nursing home.