Bedsores Lawyers in New York, NY

Bedsores should not happen to anyone in a nursing home or hospital. When they do, it almost always means someone failed to do their job. If a loved one developed bedsores while in the care of a New York facility, we can help you find out what went wrong and hold the responsible parties accountable.

Bedsores, also called pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers, develop when blood flow to the skin gets cut off because a person stays in the same position too long. The skin breaks down, opens up, and if no one steps in, the wound goes deeper. We have seen bedsores reach all the way to the bone. We have seen them get infected. We have seen patients lose limbs because of them, and we have seen families lose their loved ones because of them.

How Bedsores Develop

The medical world classifies bedsores in four stages, and each stage tells a story about how long the neglect went on.

Stage 1 is a red mark on the skin that does not turn white when pressed. Catch it here and the skin heals. Most facilities never let it get past this point if they are doing their job.

Stage 2 is an open wound or a blister. The top layers of skin are gone. The patient is in pain. Someone should have noticed by now.

Stage 3 is a deeper wound that reaches into the fat layer under the skin. You can see the wound is hollow. Infection becomes a serious risk.

Stage 4 is a wound so deep that muscle, tendon, or bone is exposed. This is severe. The patient may need surgery. They may develop sepsis. They may die.

There are also "unstageable" bedsores, where the wound is covered in dead tissue and you cannot see how deep it goes, and "suspected deep tissue injuries," where the damage is happening under intact skin. By the time a Stage 3 or Stage 4 bedsore appears, the patient has been neglected for days, sometimes weeks.

Where Bedsores Form

Bedsores form on parts of the body that press against a bed or a wheelchair. The most common locations are the tailbone, the heels, the hips, the back of the head, the elbows, and the shoulder blades. Patients who use wheelchairs often develop bedsores on the buttocks and the back of the thighs. Patients on ventilators or oxygen can develop bedsores from the equipment itself, pressing against the face, the ears, or the back of the head.

How Bedsores Are Supposed to Be Prevented

Every nursing home and hospital in New York is required to assess each patient for bedsore risk when they are admitted, and to keep reassessing throughout the stay. The Braden Scale is the most common tool. It looks at things like mobility, nutrition, hydration, incontinence, and mental status. A patient who scores low needs a written care plan that the staff must follow.

That plan should include turning and repositioning the patient at least every two hours, keeping the skin clean and dry, using pressure-relieving mattresses or cushions, making sure the patient gets enough protein and fluids, and inspecting the skin during every shift. Documentation is required. When a patient develops a bedsore in a facility that was supposed to be following a plan like this, the documentation is one of the first things we ask for. If the records say the patient was turned every two hours but a Stage 4 ulcer developed anyway, somebody is lying.

Why Bedsores Are a Sign of Neglect

Bedsores are listed in federal nursing home regulations as one of the clearest indicators of substandard care. Under 42 CFR §483.25, a nursing home that participates in Medicare or Medicaid must ensure that a resident who enters the facility without bedsores does not develop them unless they were unavoidable, and that a resident who arrives with bedsores receives the necessary treatment and services to promote healing, prevent infection, and prevent new sores from developing.

The same rules apply, in different language, to hospitals. The bottom line is that bedsores are not just a medical issue. They are a regulatory issue, and a Stage 3 or Stage 4 bedsore in a facility almost always means the facility broke the rules.

Common Causes of Nursing Home Bedsores

When we investigate a case, we usually find one or more of these problems.

• Understaffing. The facility does not have enough nurses or aides to turn patients every two hours. Turning gets skipped, then it gets skipped again, then the skin breaks down.
• Failure to follow the care plan. The plan exists on paper, but nobody is checking that it gets done.
• Falsified records. Staff check off boxes saying they turned the patient when they did not.
• Poor nutrition and hydration. A malnourished patient cannot fight off skin breakdown. Skipping meals and skipping fluids leads directly to bedsores.
• Failure to treat incontinence. Wet, soiled skin breaks down quickly. A patient left in a wet brief for hours is going to develop sores.
• Wrong equipment. The patient was on a regular mattress when they needed a pressure-relieving one. The wheelchair cushion was worn out. Nobody noticed.
• Failure to escalate. A nurse saw the early signs and did not tell the doctor. The doctor never gave new orders. The wound progressed.

What a Bedsore Lawsuit Can Recover

A successful bedsore lawsuit can recover damages for the medical bills your loved one had to pay to treat the wound, including surgery, wound care, hospitalization, and long-term care. It can recover damages for the physical pain and suffering your loved one endured. It can recover damages for the emotional distress. If the bedsore caused your loved one's death, it can recover damages under New York's wrongful death statute, including funeral and burial costs and the loss your family suffered.

In cases of egregious neglect, where the facility acted with conscious disregard for patient safety, punitive damages may also be available. These are designed not just to compensate your family but to punish the facility and deter the same behavior in the future.

Evidence We Use to Build a Bedsore Case

The proof comes from a combination of sources. Medical records from the nursing home or hospital are the starting point. Hospital records from any facility that treated the wound after the fact. Photographs of the wound. Eyewitness accounts from family members and from other staff. Internal incident reports. State Department of Health survey reports, which may show prior complaints against the facility. Personnel records, which can show whether the unit was staffed at safe levels on the days in question. We work with medical experts who can review the records and explain to a jury exactly what should have happened and what actually happened.

Time Limits on Bedsore Cases in New York

New York gives you a limited window to file a lawsuit. The general statute of limitations for nursing home neglect is three years from the date of the injury, but cases against public hospitals or government-run facilities have much shorter deadlines, sometimes as little as 90 days to file a notice of claim. If a bedsore led to a death, the wrongful death claim has its own deadline. If the patient was on Medicare or Medicaid, additional notice requirements may apply. The takeaway is that delay only hurts your case. Records get destroyed, witnesses move, memories fade. The sooner you talk to a lawyer, the better.

How We Handle Bedsore Cases

We start every case with a free, no-pressure conversation. You tell us what happened. We listen. If something sounds off, we tell you. If we think you have a case, we explain what comes next. We work on a contingency basis, which means we get paid only if we recover money for you. There is no upfront cost and no hourly bill.

From there, we order the records, line up the experts, and start building the case. Many bedsore cases settle without ever going to trial because the medical records make the neglect impossible to deny. The ones that do go to trial are tried in front of juries who understand what it means to leave a vulnerable person to suffer.

Hospital-Acquired Bedsores Versus Nursing Home Bedsores

The legal analysis can be different depending on where the bedsore developed. A patient in a hospital is usually there for a short, acute stay, and the question often comes down to whether the hospital identified the patient as high risk and put preventive measures in place quickly enough. A patient in a nursing home is usually there for months or years, and the question is whether the facility kept up with the long-term care plan day after day. Either way, the standard of care is clear, and the law expects facilities to meet it.

What Families Often Notice First

Many families do not know their loved one has a bedsore until it has already progressed. Common warning signs include a sudden refusal to sit up or move, complaints of pain when being turned, a strong odor coming from the patient's room, bandages that the facility cannot explain, weight loss, or staff that suddenly becomes evasive when you ask questions. If you see any of these signs, ask to see the wound yourself. Take photographs. Write down the date and the name of every staff member you speak with. Those notes can become important evidence later.

Call a Bedsore Lawyer Today

If your loved one developed bedsores in a New York nursing home or hospital, you do not have to figure this out alone. Call the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin at 212-233-1233 or send us an email at [email protected]. We are based in Midtown Manhattan and we represent families across all five boroughs and the surrounding counties.