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Mar 26, 2016
11:19:54pm
MormonDevil All-American
Let's conduct a thought experiment ...
Your an elderly women who has lived 50+ years married to the same man. A man who served honorably in the Korean War, who worked as a professional to earn a living, and supported and raised a wonderful family.

In recent years, your husband had a stroke that has caused him to lose almost all of his eyesight and made it difficult for him to walk. After the stroke, he bounced around from rehab facility to rehab facility trying to recuperate to the point of being able to return home with his wife.

After about six weeks, he was finally discharged home. After only a few days at home, the home health care providers noticed this man was acting strange so the family took him to the VA. He was admitted to the VA and his wife stayed with him. This man was a "fall risk" which is part of every hospital's nomenclature and requires certain preventative and safety precautions (i.e., the standard of care).

These safety precautions were not created by lawyers but were created within the medical industry. The safety precautions for a "fall risk" are keeping the bed low, bed rails always being up, keeping personal items close to the patient, a floor sensor mat, etc. Very basic things.

After a few days in the hospital with your husband, you are exhausted. The nurse notices you are exhausted and tells you to go home to get some rest, that your husband would be fine and that the guard rails would be up to protect him.

You leave for home to get some rest.

At 4:30 AM, you get a call from the nurse that your husband had fallen out of bed and on to the floor. The nurse later says the rail was not up and there were no floor mats and your husband got out of bed and was disoriented. When he fell he hit his head. (Remember, he recently had a serious stroke, a half inch brain bleed, is blind, and has had a difficult time walking).

Later that day, your husband was acting funny and he just wanted to sleep. The VA sent him to a local neuro-trauma center where they discovered he sustained a severe concussion. He was at the neuro-truma hospital for two days when he slipped into a coma. He died a few days later as a result of head trauma.

Now, you are his wife of 50+ years. What questions would you have?

You say "how it is anyone's fault that some old dude got out of bed in the middle of the night and fell down? Sounds to me like an accident, no ones at fault. Ridiculous to say the VA should have been buying 'sensors' to detect him getting up."

Do you really think it is ridiculous? Do you really think this elderly woman was pawning his care off to the government?

You view this as right vs. wrong insinuating that because I think the VA's care was substandard and probably caused this man's death, that I am wrong and a shyster. That couldn't be further from the truth. This family suffered a tremendous loss which was probably the fault of the VA. Do you not believe in accountability?

You talk like we are just signing up every single client that walks through the door. But for every Med Mal case I work or refer to another attorney, we turn down probably 80-100, and that is no lie.

You say this was simply an accident. Was it though? I'm not saying the VA kept the rails down or failed to have sensor mats on purpose hoping to injure this man. But they were negligent. When the VA undertook to care for this man, they owed him a certain standard of care. The VA breached that standard of care and the VA's actions where not in line with what a reasonably prudent hospital would do for a similar patient. The VA's failure to act appropriately caused tremendous harm to this man and his family. I can't bring this man back and the family is devastated. Unfortunately, the wife and family have suffered economic damages and tremendous pain and suffering as a result of the VA's actions. Again, do you not believe in accountability?

I will stick by what I said before. You have no idea what you are talking about in this regard. Your opinions are not based in fact. Either that, or you're just a cold-blooded black heart.
MormonDevil
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Chareth Cutestory
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MormonDevil
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