Nursing Home Neglect Lawyers in Georgia & South Carolina
While physical abuse grabs headlines, nursing home neglect is far more common — and equally deadly. Neglect occurs when a facility fails to provide the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain a resident’s health and safety. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has found that neglect is the most frequently substantiated form of nursing home maltreatment, affecting hundreds of thousands of residents each year.
At Roden Law, our nursing home neglect attorneys represent families throughout Georgia and South Carolina whose loved ones have suffered harm due to substandard care. We investigate staffing levels, care plans, medical records, and facility inspection histories to build powerful cases against negligent nursing homes.
Common Forms of Nursing Home Neglect
Neglect in nursing homes takes many forms, all stemming from a facility’s failure to meet its duty of care:
- Malnutrition and dehydration: Failure to provide adequate meals, assist residents who cannot feed themselves, or monitor fluid intake — leading to dangerous weight loss, organ failure, and death
- Bedsores (pressure ulcers): Failure to regularly reposition immobile residents, resulting in painful and potentially life-threatening pressure ulcers
- Falls: Failure to implement fall prevention measures for at-risk residents, including bed alarms, non-slip flooring, proper footwear, and adequate supervision
- Medication mismanagement: Failure to administer medications on schedule, at correct dosages, or at all — or administering medications to the wrong resident. See our medication error nursing home page for more information.
- Hygiene neglect: Failure to bathe residents, change soiled clothing or bedding, and maintain basic hygiene — leading to infections, skin breakdown, and loss of dignity
- Medical care neglect: Failure to recognize symptoms, notify physicians, follow care plans, or arrange timely transfers to hospitals for acute conditions
- Wandering and elopement: Failure to supervise residents with dementia, allowing them to wander into dangerous areas or leave the facility entirely
Understaffing: The Root Cause of Most Neglect
The majority of nursing home neglect stems from one root cause: inadequate staffing. When facilities employ too few certified nursing assistants (CNAs), nurses, and other caregivers, residents do not receive the attention they need. Federal regulations under the Nursing Home Reform Act (OBRA 1987) require facilities to provide “sufficient” staffing, but enforcement is inconsistent.
Georgia’s nursing home licensing requirements under O.C.G.A. § 31-8-1 et seq. mandate minimum standards of care and staffing. South Carolina’s S.C. Code § 44-7-110 et seq. (State Certification of Need and Health Facility Licensure Act) establishes similar standards. Violations of these statutes can serve as evidence of negligence per se.
Proving Nursing Home Neglect
Our attorneys build neglect cases using multiple sources of evidence:
- CMS inspection reports: Federal and state inspection results are public record and often document prior deficiencies, including understaffing and care failures
- Medical records: Gaps in charting, missed medications, undocumented weight loss, and ignored physician orders all indicate systemic neglect
- Staffing records: Actual staffing levels compared to census data and federal/state requirements
- Care plans vs. care delivered: Comparing what the care plan prescribed with what the resident actually received
- Expert testimony: Geriatric medicine specialists and nursing standards experts who can establish the standard of care and how the facility fell short
Compensation for Nursing Home Neglect Victims
Victims of nursing home neglect may recover medical treatment costs, pain and suffering, emotional distress, diminished quality of life, and punitive damages where the neglect was willful or the result of corporate cost-cutting. Wrongful death claims are available when neglect results in death, as is tragically common with malnutrition, dehydration, and untreated infections.