Nursing Homes Increasingly Utilized As Mental Health Centers Is Putting Patients At Risk, Per New Report
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (January 29, 2025) – California nursing homes have increasingly taken in patients with serious mental health needs, which often leads to deadly consequences.
According to one report from LAist and AMP Research Lab, these nursing homes are turning into de facto mental health centers for patients. At Hyde Park Healthcare Center, patients were running around, yelling, and defecating in the hallways.
Roughly 7 in 10 of the residents at Hyde Park had a serious mental illness. But this is far from an anomaly at this one hospital.
There are nearly 100 nursing homes across California where more than half of the residents were being treated for a serious mental illness. Some have taken to calling this practice “backdoor institutionalization.”
This has led to a very dangerous and even deadly situation for many residents. There was one report of a 68-year-old woman with schizophrenia who died from hypothermia after wandering off.
Another man with schizophrenia was critically injured after jumping off an overpass.
Legal Considerations for Nursing Home Deaths
Nursing home abuse and neglect are sadly all too common in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, “Abuse of older people is an important public health problem. A 2017 review of 52 studies in 28 countries from diverse regions estimated that over the past year 1 in 6 people (15.7%) aged 60 years and older were subjected to some form of abuse.” Nursing homes should take a number of measures in order to prevent nursing home abuse.
- Nursing homes should perform a thorough background check on all of the residents in their care.
- Nursing homes should have a zero-tolerance policy for any type of abuse or mistreatment.
- Nursing homes should properly train all staff to identify signs of abuse and neglect.
Nursing homes have a legal obligation to protect residents from reasonably foreseeable sources of harm. This includes protecting them from abuse and mistreatment. Residents with serious mental illnesses will tend to need much closer supervision and care than other residents. If a nursing home fails to adequately monitor a resident who is harmed by abuse or neglect, this could form the basis of a negligence claim. It is important that certain steps are taken after any nursing home resident dies.
- The circumstances leading up to the death should be properly understood.
- Eyewitnesses should be interviewed.
- Medical records related to the death should be collected.
- An experienced personal injury attorney should be contacted.
Most nursing homes are simply not equipped to deal with residents with serious mental illness. This problem is compounded when a single nursing home has to care for a majority of patients with serious mental health needs. In many cases, nursing home staff are not particularly well trained. These places have high turnover rates. It is important for nursing home residents and their families to understand that they do have rights. The family of any person who died in a care setting may be able to seek some measure of justice through a civil claim.
Investigating California Nursing Home Deaths
We at the Sehat Law Firm extend our deepest condolences to the family of all of the people who have died at California nursing homes. It is our sincere hope that steps are taken to better accommodate all of the elderly people with serious mental health needs. Nursing homes that are ill-equipped to handle these patients are putting them at risk.
Have you or someone that you care about been harmed at a California nursing home? Our team of personal injury attorneys is here to help in any way that we can. We care deeply that nursing home patients are aware of their rights and that those rights are being protected. Whether you just have legal questions or need any type of support, we are here for you. You can reach out to us anytime at (949) 825-5200.
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