Texas Nursing Homes and Coronavirus | Personal Injury Attorneys

So far, America has suffered more than 80,000 fatalities due to the novel coronavirus—and according to the latest data, more than a third of these deaths have occurred in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Nursing home residents are elderly and often have preexisting conditions—meaning they fall into the two biggest at-risk categories for COVID-19. As such, the pandemic has been catastrophic for nursing homes across the country, and the disaster is far from over. If your loved one has contracted COVID-19 in a Texas nursing home and become seriously ill or even died, you may have grounds for a coronavirus claim in Texas. Fortunately, our Texas personal injury attorneys have compiled an overview of what you need to know about Texas nursing homes and coronavirus. Read on to learn more.

The age and preexisting health conditions of nursing home residents are major reasons why nursing homes are becoming hotspots for coronavirus outbreaks—but other factors have put these facilities at risk for outbreaks as well. Nursing homes often house two or more residents in the same room, making social distancing or quarantining difficult or impossible. And even prior to the coronavirus pandemic, many nursing homes across the country were poorly managed and found to be in violation of state health codes.

To make matters even worse, it is common for caregivers at assisted living facilities to work at more than one nursing home due to the low wages they make. Consequently, experts believe that caregivers may have inadvertently spread the virus from one facility to the next. All of these factors combined have spelled disaster for America’s nursing home residents—and terrifyingly, low testing numbers mean that we still do not know the true scope of the problem.

Here in Texas, almost 80% of the residents of one San Antonio nursing home were diagnosed with COVID-19 along with eight staff members. Many other nursing homes are likely facing similar outbreaks, but the Texas Health and Human Services Commission is still refusing to reveal which long-term care facilities have suffered outbreaks, citing medical privacy laws.

If you or your loved one contracted COVID-19 while living in a nursing home facility, you may have grounds to file a personal injury claim against the facility for negligence. This is because legally, nursing homes owe their residents a duty of care to provide a safe and healthy environment; failure to do so constitutes negligence.

In order to prove negligence, an attorney will have to help you prove that your loved one’s nursing home facility failed to take proper precautions to prevent and/or contain an outbreak. Nursing home negligence may take many forms, including:

• Failure to provide nurses, aides, and staff members with proper personal protective equipment
• Failure to isolate / quarantine patients who showed signs of COVID-19
• Failure to routinely disinfect high-touch surfaces in the facility
• Failure to follow CDC infection prevention protocols

If you know or suspect that your loved one’s nursing home failed to take proper precautions to prevent an outbreak, you should contact a lawyer as soon as possible to discuss your next steps.

Here at Carabin Shaw, our Texas personal injury attorneys want to help you and your family however we can in these difficult times. Our team has more than 200 years of combined legal experience, and our firm specializes in Texas nursing home negligence claims. And because we offer all new clients a free consultation with a lawyer, you have nothing to lose by giving us a call today and finding out your legal options.

So reach out to our Carabin Shaw experts today at 210-222-2288 to receive your free consultation, and to find out how our team can help you get compensation and justice.